The bank is investigating ways to raise its debt and equity capital financing to N1.3 trillion over the next five years. Tony Okpana, the bank’s managing director, stated that its support has benefited over 69,000 MSMEs in economically disadvantaged states like Borno, Yobe, Katsina, Zamfara, and Adamawa. The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and global development partners conceived DBN to tackle the significant financing challenges facing Micro, Small, and Medium Scale enterprises.
The goal is to ease the financing difficulties that MSMEs encounter and to enhance initiatives aimed at job creation.
The MD stated that the bank is meeting its mandate, having reached 711,819 MSME beneficiaries.
In addition, 1.2 million jobs have been created while 20 participating financial institutions (PFIs) have been supported through the DBN Technical Assistance Programme.
He revealed that women make up 74 percent of the beneficiaries, while youths account for 25%. It was also revealed by the bank that loans provided included support for women-led MSMEs in 40% of cases, and that there is an outstanding amount of green financing totaling N75–N100 billion.
Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.
So, a lot of other partners want to come into Nigeria, work in Nigeria, and because of the reputation of DBN, want to use DBN.
“They want to work with DBN. We need to crowd it in for us to be able to make this impact we’re talking about. So, that is what I was saying, both in terms of debt and equity.
“We have had some debt sheets in terms of lending; some debt sheets, which we will not go into full detail. We have some debt sheets, as well, from the time we knew we had some funding coming in, some from the AfDB, some from KFW, and then we had another conversation with other partners.
“In addition to that, we are trying to raise funds locally. We have a bond programme that will go out on the first phase. So, if the macro becomes favourable, we will do an additional phase.”
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