Access Bank has said that it will be working with the Office of the Vice President to provide N50 billion as soft loans and grants to four million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), in the country.
Head, Emerging Businesses at Access Bank Plc, Chioma Ogwo, disclosed this at the Inaugural Job Creation and MSME Quarterly Communications Forum in Abuja on Thursday.
Ogwo said the initiative was aimed at empowering businesses in Nigeria, by building their capacities and providing them with financial support.
According to her, 4 million MSMEs are expected to be empowered every year for four years, with 70,000 having access to finance while 300,000 will receive training.
She also mentioned that as part of the initiative, selected SMEs will have the chance to travel overseas and observe how businesses operate in other nations through its Business Exchange Programme.
Ogwo said: “So, this initiative, called the Youth Thrive by Access, is focused on MSMEs and we are looking at empowering them. There are different ways in which we are going to empower them. We are going to empower them by building their capacity and giving them access to affordable finance.
“We are going to build their capacities in different ways. There is going to be digital, technical, and also, skill acquisition training. With regards to finance, we are going to be giving them loans, and we are also going to be giving them grants.
“The grants are free. They are not paying us back. But, we are only giving grants to deserving SMEs who have done very well and there are price ranges for different categories.
“So, we have earmarked 50 billion for this intervention. For the first year, we will look at it and then will would review it”
While praising Access Bank for the initiative, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and MSMEs, Office of the Vice-President, Mr. Temitola Adekunle-Johnson, stated that the objective was to remove obstacles to MSMEs’ loan access and to secure lower interest rates for them.
Johnson added that after evaluating the initiative’s effectiveness, the federal government would then consider whether to expand the funding.
According to him: “What we are trying to achieve is to be able to guarantee seamless and easy access to funding for the SMEs. We want businesses to be able to apply for funding and be sure that in the worst case, in 14 days, you have the funds that you need for your business.
“We do not want businesses to apply for loans and be waiting for disbursement in six weeks. Some of these businesses can fold up within those months. So, what we want, and what they have promised us, which we know they have the capacity to deliver on, is that this disbursements will be quick after the loan assessments are processed, so that we will help reduce the bottlenecks of MSMEs running from pillar to looking for funding.”
