Fidelity Bank D is bur se s N1.3 bn MS ME Funds

Fidelity Bank Plc said it has disbursed a total of N1.3 billion of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s N220 billion micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSME) fund.

The Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity Bank Plc, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo said this at the Fidelity Bank Plc’s Regional SME Conference, north, titled: “Positioning SMEs in the Northern Region for Real Sector Growth,” which took place in Kano recently.

According to Okonkwo, a total of 70 MSMEs benefitted from the fund.

“As I speak to you, about three of them have already repaid. So, it is not true that any loan you give to MSMEs would get lost. If you support them, which is what Fidelity Bank does, barring any unforeseen circumstances most of them will pay back.

“All they need is support. Today, in our SME balance sheet, we have about N60 billion in deposit and about N30 billion already disbursed. We have a balance sheet size of about N1.2 trillion.

But more importantly, we love SMEs.

We know that if everybody does not finance small businesses, we cannot create the new Dangotes, the new Dantatas and that is why as a bank we are saying somebody must support this sector and we have been doing that,” he added.

The Fidelity Bank boss described SMEs as critical agents for economic development in any nation.

According to him, “SMEs account for about 80 per cent of businesses.

There are over 40,000 micro, small and medium sacked enterprises employing over 60 million people in Nigeria.

That was why as a bank, in the past three years, we have continued to increase our focus on SMEs. We have a special unit that focuses on the challenges faced by SMEs in the country and we support them by a multi-faceted approach. One of them is capacity building,” he added.