Microfinance Bank, Accion MfB, has emphasised the importance of regulators and lenders dismantling long-standing barriers to financing, digitising onboarding systems and embracing alternative credit-data models that allow millions of informal businesses access to capital.

This was at Accion Microfinance Bank’s 8th annual financial inclusion seminar, themed ‘Unlocking MSME Value Chain to Drive Growth and Prosperity,’ held virtually.

Accion MfB emphasised that Nigeria can no longer rely on traditional collateral-based lending or rigid documentation rules in an economy where over 80 per cent of jobs and a significant share of GDP are generated by informal small businesses.

Managing Director, Accion Microfinance Bank, Taiwo Joda, stated that many small businesses are discouraged before they even begin due to complex rules and documentation requirements. He urged continuous dialogue between regulators and financial institutions to redesign simpler, digital-first onboarding systems.

“Financial institutions must work with regulators to co-design rules that control risk without scaring MSMEs away with paperwork. Simpler documentation, clearer guidelines and digital onboarding are immediate wins,” Joda said.

On unlocking value-chain financing, he identified four urgent reforms the Federal Government and regulators should implement: simplifying KYC for low-risk MSMEs to ease onboarding, relaxing collateral rules to allow cash-flow–based lending, accelerating approvals for digital lending platforms, and enforcing faster, transparent processes at CAC and land registries.

“These changes would immediately open up credit channels across the entire MSME value chain,” Joda said.

Chief Digital Officer, Accion MFB, Paul Ehiagbonare, said this year’s seminar focused squarely on unlocking the MSME value chain, an area he described as an urgent national priority that determines whether small businesses survive, scale or collapse.

According to him, microfinance institutions should evolve from being lenders to becoming enablers, embedding credit directly into business ecosystems and deploying technology, partnerships and alternative data to close the financing gap.

Ehiagbonare explained that modern MSME financing should be built around value-chain structures in which nobody suffers, citing invoice-discounting models that allow micro-enterprises to fulfil large corporate orders without waiting out 45-day payment cycles.