Only about 20 per cent of the N220 billion Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) fund has been disbursed to beneficiaries, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said.
CBN Director, Banking Supervision, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, said the supervisory bank was working on ways of ensuring that more funds get to the critical sectors of the economy.
Head, Relationship Management, MSME Development Finance Department, Tobin Jonathan, said CBN was jolted by the low access to the fund by operators.
CBN, he said, is worried that since the fund was launched last August only an insignificant portion has been disbursed to operators because of stringent conditions for accessing the funds.
MSME-operators, Ibrahim said, were complaining that the criteria were too difficult to meet, hence, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele relaxed them to make the funds more accessible. He added that the CBN also addressed other complaints by participating financial institutions, including the spread of profit to cover their cost of operations.
“So, they can collect the forms at two per cent and give it out at five per cent. So they have seven per cent spread which is good enough. That has encouraged so many of them to begin to apply,” Jonathan said.
The Project Manager for Financial Infrastructure Project to the CBN, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Ubong Awah, said: “We are collaborating with the CBN to establish the National Collateral Registry which will be launched by June.”
He said it is important as part of efforts to stimulate financing to the MSME sector in Nigeria, stressing that collateral registry would provide part of the infrastructure for pushing the initiative ahead.
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