The Director, Special Insured Institutions Department, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, Mr Joshua Etopidiok, has called on financial institutions, especially microfinance banks, to fund Micro Small and Medium Enterprises through the shoulders of moveable collateral.
He said moveable collaterals were created to expand the credit space for individuals and the MSMEs, adding that about 36.8 per cent of adult population in Nigeria were financially excluded and lacked access to savings and loans.
Etopidiok said these on Thursday at the 2019 sensitisation workshop on “Dead Capital/ Moveable Collaterals” and MSMEs funding organised by the NDIC for microfinance bank operators in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
He said, “There is an urgent need to encourage banks, especially microfinance banks to fund Micro Small and Medium-scale Enterprises through the shoulders of moveable collateral. About 36.8 per cent of the adult population in Nigeria are financially excluded and lack access to savings and loans and moveable collaterals are created to expand the credit space for individuals and the MSMEs.”
He said with rising unemployment, reduction in foreign reserves, and slack in economic activities, there was a need to stimulate and activate domestic economy through the MSMEs, which he described as engines of growth in any country.
According to him, the time has come for Nigeria to shift from youth empowerment to youth investment and look inward to creating investment and growth using moveable collaterals.
The workshop, he said, would expose the microfinance bank operators in the state to the philosophy and practice of funding the MSMEs using moveable collaterals, adding that financial institutions that would be profitable and sustainable were those ready and willing to fund the MSMEs.
Speaking while declaring open the workshop, the state Commissioner for Lands and Town Planning, Ime Ekpo, commended the NDIC for bringing the workshop to Uyo, the state capital, and called on participants to take the workshop seriously as it would engender social and economic development of the state.
He said the objectives of the workshop were in line with the state government’s initiatives, which was to create investment opportunities for the youths in order to stem the rising unemployment and poverty rate in the state.