Bank of Industry Backing Youth Employment and Rural Solar Power

The level of industrialization is the critical difference between poor and rich countries. Industrialised countries – defined as countries with at least 20% of GDP in manufacturing – are the wealthy countries. Countries with robust manufacturing bases achieve economic development, as they build the value chain of industrial production. The multiplier effects of investment in the industrial sectors are tremendous, including employment creation.

Our responsibility as Bank of Industry is to provide suitable financing to manufacturers, in terms of pricing (singledigit preferably) and long-term tenure. BOI is a development finance institution (DFI). Our approach to risk management is different from those of commercial banks. Our customers need to provide their counterpart funding. Through our qualifying criteria, we try to ensure they don’t lose their own capital. Our processes could be stringent, but they are designed to protect the funds of our customers as well as the Bank’s funds. We raise resources from within and outside the country. The resources we raise are other people’s savings. We must pay back; like we have a 15year debenture with the Central Bank of Nigeria – under the CBN’s N535 billion intervention fund – we must pay after 15 years.

In 2016, we approved 800 loans bankwide, with total value of N150.23 billion. While our total loan approval grew by 9% over the figure for 2015, our NPLs declined to 3.72% (which is below CBN’s threshold of 5%)