Sterling Bank lent over N55 billion to farmers in five years — CEO
hosted its Agricultural Summit in Abuja. On the sidelines of the event, the Managing Director and Chief Executive, Abubakar Suleiman, spoke with Business Editor, Bassey Udo, on a number of activities by the bank to promote agricultural development, particularly among small and medium-scale enterprises.PT: Your bank just launched SABEX, a digital commodities trading and financing platform.
The trading and financing platform is based on the block chain in Nigeria. This is the first time buyers and sellers can be connected directly for the purpose of exchanging goods and services. Based on these, the farmers can have sufficient capacity to qualify to access financial support, in terms of loans from the bank, either to buy inputs, or essentially continue to live their lives.SULEIMAN: To get on the platform, prospective players have to link their bank accounts with Sterling Bank, or any other partner banks. They will be directed to provide some more details about themselves and their businesses before they can start trading.
Where the farmers do not have facilities to store their commodities after the harvest, they are compelled to sell those commodities cheaply, since they have to dispose of those commodities immediately after harvest, to avoid them going bad after a few days. SULEIMAN: The N100 million deal room fund is what the bank has made available for farmers just for the period of the Agricultural Summit. There are several other loan schemes the bank has in place.
There are special funds the bank has put together for lending to farmers. There is also the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk-Sharing System for agricultural Lending guarantee scheme, which allows the bank to lend to farmer because of the special guarantee on the loan, irrespective of where the farmer is, or whether he is buying input, like fertilisers, tractors or equipment.
In the first year, the Anchor Borrowers Scheme was introduced, the repayment of the loans by farmers was pretty low. Every year after that, we have seen significant improvements. The farmers we deal with have also realised that it is better to pay, because if they do, they will continue to access funds to from us to sustain their businesses.
Nigeria Latest News, Nigeria Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Nigeria tragically living on borrowed time —World Bank
Read more »
1,320 schools to benefit from World Bank education intervention in Bauchi – Daily TrustNo fewer than 1,320 schools in five local government Areas of Bauchi State will benefit from the 2019 schools improvement project grant provided by the World Bank. This was disclosed by Governor, Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed in Bauchi shortly after presenting a cheque of N500,000 each to some of the benefiting schools.ADVERTISEMENT He promised to improve …
Read more »
Nigeria DEBT: World Bank, China tops Nigeria’s debt creditors with $11.46bnChecking out 'Nigeria DEBT: World Bank, China tops Nigeria’s debt creditors wi' on The Nation Newspaper Community:
Read more »
Neglect of agriculture cost Nigeria $10bn annually - World Bank Official - Premium Times NigeriaThe World Bank senior economist says neglect of the agricultural sector has proven to be a disaster and calamity for the Nigerian economy.
Read more »
Access Bank partners Lagos to launch N10bn loan for women – Daily TrustAfrica’s largest retail bank, Access Bank Plc, is collaborating with the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) to launch the LSETF W Initiative aimed at economically empowering women in the state. The initiative, which has a total loan portfolio of N10 billion, is targeted at women-owned businesses (with at least 50% ownership share) in operation …
Read more »