Wema Bank secures $70 million to boost trade and lending

Wema Bank Plc, in a statement on Monday, said it had secured $70 million from foreign lenders to finance trade and lending to small-scale businesses.

The bank said $50 million would go towards financing trade, while the remainder would help support lending to small businesses.

Nigeria, which emerged Africa’s most populous nation and biggest economy after a GDP rebasing this year, is booming, but businesses are often constrained by a lack of credit and punitive interest rates.

Wema said in April it had swung to a pretax profit of 591 million naira ($3.6 million) in the first quarter from a loss of 853 million in the same period a year before.