Rasheed Olaoluwa, managing director/chief executive, Bank of Industry (BoI), has put the bank’s disbursement to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sub-sector this year at N4.7 billion.
When compared with last year’s disbursement of N1.85 billion, this year’s figure represents an increase of N2.85 billion or 150 percent.
Olaoluwa disclosed this on the sidelines of signing of a tripartite agreement for the establishment of the Kaduna State Entrepreneurship Programme between the BoI, Kaduna State government and Kaduna Business School.
He attributed the performance of the bank in the SME sub-sector to the establishment of BoI’s SME Directorate and other initiatives aimed at promoting small businesses across the country.
Besides, he stated that within the year under review, the bank introduced a number of SME specific products with a view to meeting the individual demands of small business operators.
“There is an intensive focus on supporting SMEs. Before last year, we didn’t have directorate for SMEs. Now we have a directorate where all they do everyday is SMEs, and that has really worked. Secondly, we used to have seven offices in Nigeria, but as I speak, we have 15. In one or two months, we are also going to open additional one in Sokoto State.
“We have also introduced a number of SME specific funds. For instance, we have cottage, agro-processing fund for people who want to convert agricultural products to foods. We have also introduced fashion fund specifically for SMEs in fashion industry. The idea is, we don’t want to treat all SMEs as being the same.”
Apart from that, he said further that the identification of 35 different clusters by the bank also improved its ability to understand clearly the dynamic of small business operators.
“We have also identified 35 different clusters and that has improved our ability to understand clearly the dynamics of each segment and be able to tailor our solutions. Beyond that, we also believe that, the internal process in the bank has also improved significantly. A lot of things used to be done manually in the past, now have automated our processes.
“The credit process is faster. Wherever, I am, if a customer has satisfied all our loan conditions and they want to disburse, they don’t need to wait for me to return to Lagos, they just send it to me by email and I will approve via the email. That in itself has saved a lot delays,” he said.
Olaoluwa, who maintained that there was still more to be done, restated the determination of the bank to continue to make an impact and the needed difference to help in the realisation of the present administration’s job creation quest.
