FCMB partners PressPayNg to provide student loans

First City Monument Bank (FCMB), a member of FCMB Group Plc, has partnered with PressPayNg, a financial technology start-up firm, and other organisations to provide a payment solution for student loans.

PressPayNg, which started operations in November 2021, said it had on board over 60,000 students and had processed over N5m worth of loans for students who could not pay their tuition fees.

Ebuka Nwakoro, team lead, technology implementation at PressPayNg, told journalists in Abuja that they were able to leverage funding from FCMB and some private donors to provide the student loans at a single-digit interest rate.

For students to access the loans, however, Nwakoro said they must have also saved up to 50 percent of the tuition for the firm to pay the balance.

He said only students who are serious about their academics, maintained an account on the app and met the Know Your Customer (KYC) criteria are eligible to get the funding support.

“In partnership with FCMB, students and parents are able to open education savings accounts directly on the PressPayNg app where they save towards the payment of school fees in a flexible manner with several benefits,” he noted.

Ibukun Ola, chief strategist at PressPayNg, said the students could also subscribe to the health insurance opportunity offered by PressPayNg in partnership with over 3,000 hospitals through a Health Management Organisation (HMO).

Omotoyosi-Darey Akinwunmi of PresspayNg’s finance department said the savings, access to the loans and all the financial transactions happened within the environment of FCMB.