A 5 billion fund for businesses was presented yesterday in Abuja by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) and Sterling Bank as part of an initiative to close the funding gap in Nigeria’s Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.
The fund, according to Mr. Charles Odii, Director General of SMEDAN, was created to make life simpler for Nigerian entrepreneurs, whose main starting capital difficulty has been finding funding.
“The mandate of SMEDAN is to facilitate access to finance by MSMEs, which is why today, we have partnered Sterling Bank to sign this memorandum of understanding targeted at creating a N5bn fund at a single digit interest rate for small businesses across different sectors.
“We will make these funds available in two weeks’ time and ensure that people key into it and our target is 10,000 MSMEs and ensure that the process is seamless across the country,” Odii said.
“The credit facility will be given at a single digit rate, which is part of the bank’s corporate social responsibility for businesses,” stated Sterling Bank CEO Abubakar Suleiman in a statement. “Out of the 10,000 MSMEs, we hope 2,000 will outgrow their businesses and seek loan for commercial funding.”
He stated that the bank “will deliver it using technology platforms and ensure that access is seamless using a platform called ‘Banker,’ which business owners can access anywhere in the country and not queue up anywhere,” regarding the procedures for obtaining the loans.
