James Emejo in Abuja
The Managing Director/Chief Executive, Baobab Microfinance Bank, Mr. Kazeem Olanrewaju, has said it plan to disburse about N30 billion to small and medium scale (SMEs) customers by the end of the year
He added about N5 billion had been disbursed this year.
Speaking at a customers’ forum in Abuja, he said, “We still have about N25 billion to go and it is part of the reasons we are here today to talk to our clients to let them know that there are a lot of things available for them to be able to take home.”
He said the bank has a lot of focus on creating risk assets for customers, stressing that over 120,000 lives had been touched with over N30 billion disbursed within the past 10 years.
He said its outstanding loan book currently stands at about N7.5 billion from about 27,000 customers.
Olanrewaju also said the rate of loan repayment had been impressive as, “We closed the year with about 2.3 per cent and what that means is that for every N100 we give out, we are getting N97.70 and so for us, it is very good. And I can also tell you it is one of the best you can get in the industry today.”
According to the MD: “The idea that customers don’t pay is not true and we don’t agree. We have some dissenting customers who would not follow the norm and not pay but they are fewer, the majority are paying back.
“And sometimes, they tell you that the poor people don’t pay which is not true based my experience but I need to also say that our customer selection process is very rigorous but once you come in, we grow your business at the pace that you want to go.
“We have seen people who started with about N300,000 and today they do loans of more than N15 million. Our system is drawn in a way that if you are a good customer you can easily grow.”
He added: “Today, we have automated even our loan process and if you have good repayment history you can get a 20 per cent increase each time you want to renew your loan and you don’t have to go through all the process of documentation all over again.
“We grew three years ago with less than three branches to about 20 branches today and our loan book was about N2.7 billion but today is close to N8 billion.
“If we continue at that pace, yes, we might not cover everybody but we will have a lot of people in our books helping them. We see the number of people coming to bank with us increasing.”
