In Eight Years, DBN Disbursed N482bn To MSMEs

The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) has disbursed N482 billion to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) through the participating financial institutions.

Its Managing Director, Mr. Tony Okpanachi, made this known at the end of the bank’s 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja yesterday.

Okpanachi said DBN has, since its inception, disbursed over N482 billion to beneficiaries, 65 per cent of which were to women and youth-owned businesses.

DBN, he said, had to release this fund to save MSMEs from collapse after being hit by COVID-19.

The DBN chief said last year was challenging “in terms of uptake of our funding compared to previous years, but recovery is taking place”.

According to him, “as you are aware, small businesses were severely impacted by COVID-19 this affected us but we recovered quickly because that was when funding from DBN was required. In 2021, we saw more funding to the financial institutions, who approached DBN for more funding”.

Last year, Okpanachi said the bank overcame the challenges of funding MSMEs, infrastructure and market access.

“We faced, particularly, with COVID-19, the uptake of their products that is, demand for their products, sale of their products were all impacted so the performance of their businesses were affected.

“We have started seeing uptake in terms recovery and banks coming back to request for funding on behalf of their clients,” he said.

Despite disbursing close to N500million, Okpanachi stated that DBN registered zero non-performing loans.

“All the banks doing business with us do not have any problems with non-performing loans because they have met their obligations. Industry level NPL is still low at 5 percent by and large on lending to MSMEs has not impacted negatively,” he said.

Okpanachi also said DBN would expand channels of disbursements. “We are bringing more financial institutions on board to be able to use them as channels to disburse more funding from DBN,” he added.

In addition, DBN he said: “Will also look at which areas these funds will go to women and youth owned businesses, other sectors of the economy that are challenged, we will focus on that.”

He said a key area that DBN would be focusing on with the financial institutions in the year would be to encourage lending to startups.

“Again, as you are aware, it is a risky business there are lots of start-up businesses and we want to encourage them by looking at how we can lend to that sector of the economy”

Presenting the summary of the financial statement for the year ended December 31, 2021, to the Shareholders, Okpanachi informed stakeholders that the fundamentals of the bank’s financials were robust.

“Total Gross Earnings closed at N38.18 billion, Profit Before Tax (PBT) at N22.76 billion representing, an increase of 25 percent from the previous year. Total Assets also increased by 1.4 percent from N492.3 billion in 2020 to N499.2 billion in 2021,” he said. He attributed the bank’s performance to its robust corporate governance, business model as well as its top-notch enterprise risk management and Board of Directors, Management and Staff members’ commitment.