By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) says it has disbursed loans worth over N700 billion to entrepreneurs out of which N137 billion were to women-owned businesses.
Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Services of the bank, Mrs. Ijeoma Ozulumba, disclosed this at the International Woman Day event with the theme: Celebrating Amazons in the Market place”: at the Wuye Ultra Modern Marker in Abuja on Friday.
According to her, “in the number of end borrowers for our loans, 50 percent have been women”.
The DBN boss also disclosed that the bank in its portfolio records less default in loan repayment than others in the banking sector, adding that, “in the number of end borrowers for our loans, 50 percent have been women”.
She explained that the development institution has provided support for the Small and medium enterprises beyond finances with the sole aim of boosting economic growth.
“We give specific training on how they can manage their business. How they can keep their books, how they can manage your operations, access to market access to networks as well. So beyond funding, we do a lot of training. We also do a lot of location specific training.
“Last year we were in the North East and Northwest went round six states in northern Nigeria to ensure that women have access to finance, have access to knowledge, to grow their business and to develop their businesses. So this is very important.
“Every year we do a nationwide training program as well. Where we go to Lagos, Port-harcourt and Abuja here, we also provide of training and making sure that they have the knowledge. We also provide certain grants to women specifically in small amounts to help them scale up their business and to help them grow and be able to do better and to manage their business more effectively. READ ALSO:
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“So we work through banks, we don’t lend directly to customers. We lend to what we call our participating financial institutions and these financial institutions then make these funds available to women. So far from the intervention that we’ve seen, our banks have reported to us that our portfolio has the lowest non performing loans, there’s good recovery in the loans and also women portfolio is even lower in terms of default”.
The event attracted many women from diverse backgrounds including traders, professionals, the working and non working class was held at the Wuye Ultra Modern Market, Abuja.
