Bank of Industry moves to ease loan process for SMEs

The Bank of Industry (BOI) is planning to appoint service support firms to facilitate the application of loans by Small Medium Enterprises.

The Managing Director of BOI, Mr. Rasheed Olaoluwa, has said the who spoke during a courtesy call to the bank by members of the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, said the initiative would accelerate service delivery by the bank.

He said, 'We are in the process of appointing business service support firms; firms that will engage the SMEs and help them to repackage their loan applications such that by the time those applications get to the BOI, they will be bankable proposals. That will increase the success of such applications.

'We also have arrangement with microfinance banks whereby we lend to them and they in turn lend to the micro enterprises who require N100,000, for instance, to be able to carry out their activities. That programme is ongoing and as a matter of fact, we are encouraging more microfinance banks to come on board.'

For the small enterprises, he said the BoI was encouraging cooperative lending to come together in groups to process products that could be used as raw materials for industry with support from the bank.

'That was why we set up a micro credit committee to consider solely credits that are less than N10m,' he said.

Olaoluwa, however, said the bank was only interested in funding the SMEs that could add value to the economy through manufacturing.

He said, 'There are SMES and there are SMEs; those that add value to the economy and those that are merely engaging in trading activities by importing items and selling. They don't add value to our economy; they don't contribute significantly to employment generation.

'We would like to support those SMES that engage in productive activities, those who have factories, no matter how small. Those are the SMEs that we would like to assist; that is the only way we can help to boost manufacturing to contribute significantly to the Gross Domestic Product.'

Members of NASME approached the bank for collaboration on issues affecting the MSME sector, including access to finance and capacity building.

The NASMI Deputy President, South, Mr. Orimadegun Agboade, said, 'As a crucial element towards business success especially for the SMEs, it is imperative to earmark special funds for NASME members based on genuine needs and strong recommendations from the national secretariat, especially on micro credit facilities, which in most cases are needed to grow their businesses.'

The association also stated that knowledge gap had continued to pose a serious challenge to most of the SMEs, and consequently affected their ability to manage borrowed funds. - Punch.