By Felix Khanoba
The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with Sterling Bank aimed at providing N5 billion single interest loan to small businesses in the country.
Speaking during the signing of the MoU at SMEDAN’s headquarters on Wednesday in Abuja, the Director General of the Agency, Mr Charles Odii, said the deal, which is expected to come into force in two weeks time, is to provide access to finance to about 10,000 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
“The MoU is to create a loan portfolio of N5 billion at a single digit interest rate for small businesses across different sectors.
” From the loan available, we can make access to finance available to close to 10,000 businesses, ” the SMEDAN boss said.
Odii, who said the importance of access to finance by small businesses cannot be over-emphasized, posited that the agency would leave no stone unturned to ensure small businesses in the country get easy access to funding.
” What we want to do as an agency is to first of all make this access for finance easier because we understand finance is very scarce, and finance is very expensive in tjis part of the world,” he said.
On his part, the Managing Director of Sterling Bank, Mr Abubakar Suleiman, said government had before now rolled out various access to finance intervention programmes for SMEs, adding that the involvement of the bank in the new scheme would be a game changer.
He said the partnership the bank was contemplating with SMEDAN was one that will not only provide access to finance for small businesses, but ensure it serves as a springboard for massive expansion of many SMEs to bigger enterprises.
“Our job is to guide them into the journey of becoming an institution that can attract finance. So as much we are going to give low interest rate finance, the real thing is if you pass through the process successfully, you can access finance anywhere, because you will be able to meet the basic needs that are required, and they are not complicated, ” the Sterling Bank’s chief said.
Speaking further, Suleiman said details of the SMEs’ finance scheme would be made available at the SMEDAN and the bank’s websites, adding that the loan tenure would range from six months to a maximum of two years.
