Nigerian lenders in drive to woo female entrepreneurs
Banks in the African country are targeting women through discounted interest rates, lower transaction charges and policy shifts
When Bolanle AustenPeters sought a loan for a cultural centre in Lagos, she was told there was no business case. Then she found an artloving banker to back her. Now she is lighting up stages and screens around the world.
Austen-Peters, a lawyer, was 34 and fresh from quitting the UN when her Terra Kulture got equity funding in 2003 from Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB). It was led at the time by the late Tayo Aderinokun, who supported artists such as the well-known Yinka Shonibare.
Cash injections from GTB helped fund the purchase and refurbishment of the centre. In 2017, a loan from Nigeria’s Bank of Industry financed a 400-seat theatre. She still regularly relies on Ecobank Transnational to fund stage productions.
“Support from banks makes life very easy for us,” said Austen-Peters, one of the producers of the Netflix thriller
which tells the story of an Ebola outbreak in Nigeria. “From there we can pay the actors. Otherwise at times you can’t rely solely on ticketing.”
The steady stream of financial assistance helped transform a rundown building into a vibrant hotspot that has hosted former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and actors such as Forest Whitaker and Ben Stiller.
Austen-Peters will be depending on even more support as she expands Terra Kulture to include an academy that will provide training and develop more local content.
The success of her business shows why Nigerian lenders such as Access Bank, also one of Austen-Peters’s backers, are in an all-out push to add female entrepreneurs as customers.
The economy is still dominated by men: only a third of women have a bank account, according to Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access, a development organisation. They also are prevented from doing some jobs and are more likely than men to end up running roadside stalls rather than going to university.
“Women make most of the consumer purchases in the home,” said Ada Udechukwu, the head of women banking at Access Bank. “They are an untapped economy.”
Nigeria’s biggest bank has experienced a twofold surge in deposits from women over the past year since opening a gender-diversity unit, while the number of female customers has doubled, Udechukwu said.
Access Bank chaired by a woman, Mosun Belo-Olusoga has a 15-person team dedicated to gender issues at its Lagos headquarters. Each branch has a point person whose job is to target women and femaleowned companies with savings and insurance products.
“The business is growing quite quickly,” Udechukwu said.
Access Bank is also implementing the branch model at units in Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia, she said, adding that it plans to launch the initiative in Mozambique in January.
The lender is finding that women are better savers, more loyal and better at repaying debt. Their non-performing loans ratio is less than 1%, compared with about 6% across the group, Udechukwu said.
There is a wider economic incentive too.
Full gender equity in Nigeria could add 23%, or $229bn, to GDP by 2025, the highest of any African nation, according to research by McKinsey Global
Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.
If 100 represents parity, Nigeria scores 56 on measures including equality at work, access to essential services, physical security and autonomy and legal protection, compared with 68 for SA, which vies with the oil producer for the title of Africa’s biggest economy.
The push for more female clients is a long time coming. When GTB decided to back
Austen-Peters, the firm itself tapped a small-business fund created by the central bank. Former governor Lamido Sanusi in 2013 also pushed lenders to appoint more female directors. Now two of the nation’s six-largest banks are chaired by women, the same ratio as SA.
Current governor Godwin Emefiele is taking another approach and is penalising banks that do not lend out 65% of their deposits to small and medium-sized businesses, consumers and other targeted industries. That means lenders need to find their own next success stories.
Standard Chartered’s Nigerian unit plans to give management training through a women-focused programme it has deployed in the US, Kenya, Pakistan and the UAE, said Dayo Aderugbo, the local division’s head of brand and marketing.
The Nigerian business, which is aiming to increase female customers to 500,000 from 100,000 over the next two years, will also offer some women entrepreneurs grants to expand, she said.
The London-based lender is “optimistic it would be very successful” in banking Nigerian women, Aderugbo said. “There is a steady growing population of women in business in Nigeria and the bank sees this as an opportunity to equally make tangible, measurable impact.”
Another institution, United Bank for Africa, rolled out a female-focused account called Ruby, which offers zero charges and a discounted interest rate to target customers.
Austen-Peters, who got the idea for Terra Kulture because of a lack of museums and art exhibition centres celebrating Nigeria’s heritage, said banks are not “charities” and are reacting to an opportunity they cannot miss.
That is a view shared by Rise Networks CEO Toyosi AkereleOgunsiji, who in 2011 was cited by US former first lady Michelle Obama as an inspiration for her ability to rally people around social causes.
“We are seeing more women in the private sector than ever before,” said Akerele-Ogunsiji. “We are beginning to see women take strategic positions in the public and private sector, and helping to shape policy when it comes to access to finance.”
WOMEN MAKE MOST OF THE CONSUMER PURCHASES
IN THE HOME. THEY ARE AN UNTAPPED ECONOMY