BoI erred in issuing 30 days ultimatum for pending loan applications—Analysts
Though the Bank of Industry (BoI) has said it reduced turnaround time for loan applications, and issued a 30-day ultimatum to its customers to complete their documentations, industry observers have objected to the ultimatum.
According to a cross-session of business developers, what BoI should have done is to reduce bureaucratic documentations and make its loan access process seamless.
Dr. Ken Igboanugo in an interview said “If BoI said it is giving ultimatum to loan seekers to round up their applications in 30 days, how sure is the bank that all the terms and conditions they have stipulated will be met within the given time”.
“This is reason why many startups have lost confidence on the BoI over the years. It is wrong for an agency to give conditions that must take more than 30 days and turn around to demand submission of completed application in 30 days. It means that BoI is not ready to give the loans in the first place or it has selected those it has in mind contrary to the laid down procedures after all.
BoI had hinged its latest decision on the heels of the present administration’s Ease of Doing Business mandate to remove critical bottlenecks and bureaucratic constraints to doing business in the country.
However, giving a 30 day ultimatum without simplifying the time consuming and stressful nature of meeting the tall orders and conditions it has set is an embarrassment to the collective intelligence of loan applicants.
Observers agreed that the only thing that can suggest that BoI is working on easing access to loan is when it simplifies procedures to loan access.
According to the General Manager, BoI, Joseph Babatunde, the 30 day ultimatum would also go a long way to help businesses get fast and improved service delivery while also urging its customers to make available all the required documents for evaluation.
He averred that “We are advising our customers to make available all the required documents to evaluate their proposal between 30 days and if they do not meet with this deadline, we will return whatever they have given us until they meet up with the full documentations for loan application. Babatunde made this known during its gender business group customers’ forum in Lagos.
“As a development bank, the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is to see how many people we can create employment for using our different intervention funds. To us, this is very important and we want a situation where you can take advantage of most of the services we offer to improve on your operations to get more people employed,” BoI official noted.
