Primera Microfinance Bank, a fully licensed and technology-driven finance institution offering financial solutions to businesses and individuals, has extended over N5bn financing to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in 2022.

The Bank accomplished this feat by strategically targeting key growth sectors in the SME space to stimulate their commercial and economic growth while further pledging to maintain robust financing lines for entrepreneurs in the economy to enable them to weather economic headwinds and surmount critical financial challenges.

In recognizing the critical role that gender diversity and financial inclusion for women play in driving sustainable economic growth, approximately 26% of these financing lines were made out to female entrepreneurs in the current financial year, doubling the 13% share recorded in 2021. These funding lines were focused on enabling small and medium-scale entrepreneurs to sustain and grow their businesses and empower them to launch new companies to compete in the marketplace.

The Chief Executive Officer of Primera Microfinance Bank, Mr. Unwana Efiong Esang, speaking on the development, said, “at Primera MFBank, we are solidly committed to building the capacity of Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in this economy to ensure they thrive, create wealth for our people and add value to society. This is critical because, according to available data, over 99% of registered businesses in Nigeria are MSMEs and contribute 46% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP); this is in addition to providing over 87% of employment in our economy. So, we are deliberately focusing on growing this important dimension of our economy by leveraging one of our must-win objectives of significantly improving customer and stakeholder satisfaction.”

“Our Bank, through our Primera Business proposition, is proud to be championing the cause of SMEs in our economy, and in recognition of the fact that access to finance is a major challenge to SMEs, we have optimized our lending processes to make our financing lines more accessible and available in a time and cost-efficient manner to our highly valued SME clientele. In addition, we have established partnerships that have significantly improved credit application support, as well as the knowledge, expertise and enabling infrastructure around SMEs through our periodically held and very well-attended Primera SME Clinics”, Esang further stated.

In addition, he said, “these clinics are focused on empowering SMEs and entrepreneurs with company incorporation support, financial and economic literacy, sales and marketing support, book-keeping knowledge, branding support and legal advisory for their businesses. We have developed a robust and all-encompassing ecosystem to incubate SMEs to achieve market and economic success.”

In conclusion, Esang said, “the results of all our efforts have further validated and proven our concept for SME success, and we fully intend further to deepen our support for small and medium-scale entrepreneurs, grow their businesses into sustainable and economically viable enterprises and thereby contribute further to the deepening and development of our economy. At Primera Microfinance Bank, we truly are your fully dedicated partner for growth.”