Diamond Bank empowers 75,000 entrepreneurs via businessxpress enterprise series

Diamond Bank plc has through its businessxpress enterprise series developed and empowered over 75,000 entreprenures across the country.

“We train about 15,000 people every single year. We have done this for five years in terms of impact. We always use every opportunity we have to improve what businesses are doing, all the operational structures they need to put in place, all the legal, governance structures they need to put in place. The whole human resource, finance, operation components are very critical,” Aishah Ahmad, head, retail banking, said at the 51^st Business Enterprise Series held in Lagos.

Diamond bank is very committed to small businesses, she said, saying “we are not talking about short term commitment. Every single day we show commitment because this is one of the biggest segment we focus on. Apart from this, we also have online portal where people can go and get information. We do smaller clinics across different branches to ensure all businesses around benefit from this.”

According to her, it is well known that Diamond is a SME bank, that is it focuses on micro small and medium enterprises. “It is not just financing but by making those businesses viable to be able to approach those finances, because it is for a purpose and the only way the business can be sustainable to pay that loan is for it to sell. So, we try to prove access to market by connecting companies,” she said.

One of the facilitators at the seminar, AudreyJoe-Ezigbo, co-founder and executive director, Falcon Corporation Limited, told participants that they should think big, think synergy, think excellence, think impact because they can transform this country.

She sees the challenges facing businesses as not having the right person with the right idea run a business, lack of finance and competition, among others.

“The reason I spoke the way I did is because I am very passionate about Nigeria. I believe so much in the potentials of this country. I believe that Nigerians are very entrepreneurial people. I believe that we have what it takes to change this country, but there has been too many negative examples. A lot of us do not see the big picture so I am very committed to trying to help business people to see that we can do this. Companies we admire in other countries, we can also build them here. We can do it by doing the right things.

“As a business, we have also invested in training people as part of our CSR initiative and ending that training with an empowerment package so that they can start,” she said.

 

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE