Fidelity Bank leads in disbursement of CBN’s SMEs funds, gives out N2.2bn
Statistics made available to Business Hilights has shown that Fidelity Bank has so far disbursed N2.2 billion to operators of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) out of the N220 billion earmarked for the sub sector by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Managing Director of the lender, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo gave the figures in Lagos during its radio programme, tagged: Fidelity SME Forum, hosted by Mrs. Monalisa Chinda-Coker, an actress-turned media entrepreneur.
The bank chief revealed that the loan beneficiaries have been committed to repayment and there has been no case of default by the beneficiaries so far.
Okonkwo however advised other SME operators yet to access the fund to approach the bank for not just fund access but the needed technical advice that will drive them to effective usage of the facility.
According to him, “The challenge we have in Nigeria is that we have got so skeptical about good intentions of either the government or the finance sector that people read a lot of meanings to them. But the CBN is very serious about the N220 billion SMEs’ fund. We are witnesses because we have customers who accessed the SME funds through us”.
“We have done about N2.2 billion of the funds. We have got repayment of about N400 million. We haven’t had any default because of the process through which these funds were accessed. CBN cannot go to Aba and start lending money. That is why they need a bank like Fidelity. Our team spent about two weeks there. So we have not abandoned those people. Instead, we planted a bank there, we are even lending to more and more of the customers. I just want to encourage the people to take advantage of this,” Okonkwo, Fidelity Bank chief noted.
