Bank, NGO to support women businesses with N100m

To support the growth and sustainability of businesses led by Nigerian Women, AG Mortgage Bank, in collaboration with Hacey Health Initiative has set aside N100 million in funding to accelerate the businesses of 500 Nigerian women yearly through the Empowering Societies Through Investment in Women (ES-TIW) initiative.

Speaking at a media parley, Chief Executive Officer of AG Mortgage Bank, Ngozi Anyogu, said that the project, executed in partnership with HACEY, would be distributed to women in single-digit interest loans to support nano, micro, and small-scale businesses with a maximum duration period of 12 months.

He explained that beneficiaries of the project would be given business education, organised in small clusters of five each and assigned mentors to ensure that they have access to guidance as they work towards improving their businesses.

He said that the initiative, born from a commitment to see women thrive, would take off in five states of Lagos, Abuja, Edo, Delta and Abia, adding that 60 per cent or 300 women beneficiaries would be selected from the Assemblies of God Church.

According to Anyogu, with the ES-TIW project, they are empowering women and putting resources in their hands so they can contribute to building their families.

“With a strong Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework built by Deloitte, we have decided that in this first year, we would reach out to 500 women.”

“To ensure that this project works, we have chosen a partner that is as passionate about women as we are, HACEY, to drive this project.”

To ensure a secured project, we have groups in batches of five to make sure that participants pay. Our colleagues and our consultants are building around this project to mitigate the associated risks.

“The quota dedicated to the church is because the church gave life to the entity called AG Mortgage Bank. Assemblies of God Church is the core strategic investor in AG Mortgage bank and has sustained and supported us these past 20 years,” he said.

Executive Director of HACEY Health Initiative, Rhoda Robinson, shared that the partnership was a testament to the shared vision of HACEY and AG Mortgage Bank in building a society of financially empowered women.