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‘Why BoI expand regional intervention with state offices’

By Femi Adekoya
29 April 2015   |   12:41 am
The Bank of Industry (BoI) has hinged the implementation of its expansion strategy on the need to improve customers’ accessibility to its services as well as boost industrialisation efforts of state governments across the country.
BoI

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of Industry (BoI), Rasheed Olaoluwa (left) and Oyo State Deputy Governor, Moses Alake Adeyemo, during the commissioning of the bank’s state office in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Loan disbursements to south-west region hits N18b

The Bank of Industry (BoI) has hinged the implementation of its expansion strategy on the need to improve customers’ accessibility to its services as well as boost industrialisation efforts of state governments across the country.

According to the bank, the expansion of its regional intervention would see the bank commissioning additional seven state offices in different regions in a bid to consolidate its re-engineering efforts while improving service delivery efficiency.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BoI, Rasheed Olaoluwa while speaking during the commissioning of the bank’s state office in Ibadan, Oyo State, said the bank having received approval for the expansion of its operations in 2014, is expanding its framework and reach to seven states including Anambra, Port-Harcourt, Oyo, Osogbo among others.

Olaoluwa said: “Oyo State is very crucial to BOI’s strategy of ensuring that our development finance services are brought closer to the people of the State especially in our bid to vastly improve our service delivery efficiency, while also reaching out to all parts of the entire South West Region.”

He explained that the bank hopes to increase its reach and penetrate many industrial firms through the recently unveiled Cottage Agro-Processors (CAP) Fund to support the establishment of cottage agro processing plants and firms involved in agro-allied businesses.

He noted that the bank, till March 31, 2015, had provided loans in excess of N18 billion to industrialise the South-west geopolitical zone of the country. The amount, according to him, covered states like Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states while Lagos state was also specially taken care of in the bank’s industrialisation efforts at growing entrepreneurship ventures across the 36 states of the federation.

Of the N18 billion, Olaoluwa disclosed that over 80 firms and micro enterprises spread across Oyo State as at March this year has been given over N10 billion. He said: “Oyo State is very crucial to BoI’s strategy of ensuring that our development finance services are brought closer to the people of the State especially in our bid to vastly improve our service delivery efficiency, while also reaching out to all parts of the entire South West Region.”

According to him, Oyo State Government had also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BOI in 2012, which culminated in the establishment of the OYSG/BOI Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Matching Fund Scheme to the tune of N1biillion. “To date, the bank has recorded a total loan approval of N375 million in respect of 68 enterprises.

Of this amount, a total of N225 million had been disbursed to 35 enterprises. Additional disbursements to 17 other enterprises in the sum of N104 million is currently being processed while some of the new beneficiaries have been presented with cheques amounting to N124.17 million”, he added.

On his part, Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, who was represented by his Deputy, Moses Alake Adeyemo expressed optimism that the new BoI’s regional and state offices would deepen the bank’s developmental impact in the five states comprising Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Kwara States that it is out to serve.

Ajimobi noted that no nation could ever prosper without putting the natural resources at its disposal into effective use through secondary production, adding that the state government is committed to providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.

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