The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Thursday began a strategic movement towards easing the business challenges of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSMEs) sector through the establishment of the National Collateral Registry.
This was made public at the end of a three-day workshop with the theme ‘The secured transaction and national collateral registry as a tool for deepening access to finance MSMEs’, organised by the Bankers’ Committee’s sub-committee on Economic Development, Sustainability and Gender for MSME desk officers in banks in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation and World Bank.
In a statement, the apex bank’s Director, Development Finance Department, Dr. Mudashiru Olaitan, noted that the workshop was organised to keep the industry operators abreast of the efforts being put in place to assist in the MSMEs’ financing through the establishment of the NCR.
“There are about 37 million MSMEs in Nigeria and most of them have no access to finance. This has created a huge gap and thus the reason for the establishment of the NCR to facilitate credit with movable assets.”
The Chairperson of the Sub-committee on Economic Development, Sustainability and Gender of the Bankers’ Committee, Mrs. Bola Adesola, noted that the NCR, which was a form of modern, secured collateral registries, had increased the availability of credit and reduced the cost of credit globally.
