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Banker’s Committee Pledge Single Digit Interest Rate for Women Entrepreneurs

By on February 8, 2012

The Central Bank Governor speaking at the ongoing Microfinance and Entrepreneurship Awards has made it known that 2012 has been themed the year of “Women Empowerment” by the Banker’s Committee.

In order to empower women in the country and incentivize them to engage in entrepreneurial activities, the Banker’s Committee made up of Money deposit banks in the country has pledged to provide single digit interest rate loans to them.

His words: “The Bankers’ Committee has made 2012 the year of ‘Women Empowerment’. A sub-committee on Women’s’ Empowerment has been formed, with the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank [Biola Adesola] as Chairperson.

“We are working at establishing a special fund by the end of the year, which would provide credit facilities to women at a single digit interest rate. We are also working with Banks to ensure that a certain percentage of senior management and board seats are reserved for women.’’

Sanusi said this program would serve to cut the percentage of those financially excluded in the country. A percentage the CBN governor pegged at 46% compared to South Africa (26%), kenya (32.7%) and Botswana (33%).

The CBN governor listed the following measures the apex bank is implementing in order to reduce the statistic:

  • Revision of the Microfinance Policy, Regulatory and Supervisory Framework,

 

  • Conclusion of the National Microfinance Development Strategy (NMDS) (a road map to guide orderly growth in the industry and enable microfinance institutions (MFIs) and MFBs to be viable to attract investments and enrich our monetary policy projections and enhance its transmission mechanism), among others.

 

  • Development of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (FIS) that will further facilitate access for the otherwise dis-advantaged groups like the farmers, women, aged citizens, self-employed, jobless school leavers and SMEs hitherto considered by banks as costly, risky and unviable; and

 

  •  The commitment made by the apex bank at the 2011 Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Global Policy Forum held in Mexico, to reduce Nigeria’s financial exclusion rate from 46.3 to 20 per cent by 2020.