Development Bank of Nigeria disburses N31.6b in first year of operations

. plans N70b disbursement in 2019

Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) has disbursed a total of N31.364 billion to 35,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)  during the first one year of its operations in line with its core mandate of development of the Nigerian country. The bank started operations in October 2017.

Tony Okpanachi, managing director/chief executive officer of the bank who disclosed this at an interactive session in Lagos on Thursday, said the actual disbursement exceeded the disbursement target of N30 billion set for the period.

Giving a breakdown of the sectors that had benefitted from the bank’s facilities, Okpanachi said trade took the lion share of 32.78 percent, followed by agriculture at 19.5 percent and manufacturing which accounted for 17.45 percent.

Other sectors are construction (7.60 percent), education (5.39 percent), transport (2.86 percent), finance (2.57 percent), services (2.43 percent) and others which got 9.82 percent.

The Development Bank of Nigeria boss revealed that women accounted for 73 percent of the end borrowers.

Okpanachi said its policy of on-lending to end users through participating financial institutions was designed to insulate the bank from credit risks associated with retail and direct lending. He however said the bank uses strict criteria to select the participating financial institutions to ensure that high standards of loan administration are maintained.

He disclosed that through monitoring and evaluation of projects funded by the bank, the bank has  succeeded in ensuring that funds disbursed are spent for the purposes intended and not diverted. He also said the bank will not, through the participating banks, grant loans to politicians under any guise.

On its plan for 2019, the DBN boss said the bank planned o achieve a disbursement of N70 billion to SMEs and further help in growing the economy through job creation and innovation.

He revealed that the bank has strong alliances with international financial institutions such as the World Bank African Development Bank, European  International Bank, French Development Bank and the German Development Bank, adding that the alliances have made the available resources at its disposal to be about $1.3 billion.