The Bank of Industry (BoI) has called for greater mobilisation of long-term capital to finance Nigeria’s industrial growth, even as it makes a bold move to make access to its credit faster and less dependent on manual processes.

The bank’s Managing Director, Olasupo Olusi, made the call in Abuja at BoI’s 2026 Annual Public Lecture, saying financing must reach more underserved businesses and translate into measurable economic impact.

Olusi said BoI disbursed N645 billion in 2025 to more than 12,000 businesses, with the interventions impacting 1.68 million jobs, but argued that more capital would be required to support inclusive economic transformation.

He said Nigeria needed to rethink how capital was mobilised, structured and deployed, particularly to support industrial activity and attract private investment into productive sectors.

“Our focus is on how capital can be mobilised, structured and deployed more effectively to deliver measurable development outcomes,” Olusi said.

The call came as the bank launched MyBOI, an end-to-end digital portal designed to simplify the process of applying for and accessing BOI financing.

The platform allows prospective customers to complete onboarding, undertake impact and sustainability assessments, submit financing applications and track their progress digitally. It is designed to serve micro, small and medium enterprises, large businesses, cooperatives, associations and other eligible customers.

The move is expected to reduce some of the delays associated with manual and branch-based applications, while improving visibility for applicants and giving the bank better data for credit decisions.

Olusi said the initiative was aimed at making development finance more accessible and responsive, noting that access to funding should not be separated from the process businesses go through to obtain it.

“Access to finance is not only about the availability of funding; it is also about making the journey to that funding simpler and more efficient,” he said.

The portal is expected to reduce front-end application initiation time by at least 40 per cent within nine months, while BOI is targeting a 30 per cent increase in qualified digital financing applications within 12 months and at least 60 per cent self-service adoption for new applications over the same period.

Speaking at the lecture, former World Bank Director and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, Asad Alam, said Nigeria’s development challenge should not be viewed solely through the availability of capital, but also through how efficiently it is used.

Alam said as economies develop, productivity becomes increasingly important to sustained growth, while technology, human capital and strong institutions should complement physical capital.

However, the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, disagreed with the view that capital was becoming less important, arguing that critical areas such as power, logistics and infrastructure still require significant financing.

Fasua also called for technology, information, knowledge and artificial intelligence to be recognised more explicitly in measuring productivity and human capital.

The discussions reinforced the need for stronger financing for businesses and industrial activity, with panellists also commending BOI’s support for SMEs and the wider industrial sector while calling for more funding to enable the bank to expand its interventions.