As part of its ambitious plans for 2021, Baobab Microfinance Bank Nigeria said it would disburse N3.5 billion loans monthly, to Nigerian customers, which amounts to N42 billion loans disbursement in 2021.
Baobab Nigeria is a subsidiary of Baobab Group, which has footprint in 12 countries. Baobab Nigeria would be celebrating 12 years of successful operation in the country by March 2021.
To achieve the loan disbursement target, the bank plans to enhance its digital transformation projects, Kazeem Olanrewaju, managing director/CEO said in exclusive interview with BusinessDay.
This plan by the bank offers opportunity for over 85 million adults without a microfinance bank account to have access to finance.
The bank also plans to expand its branch network with the opening of three additional branches. “We already have the approval from the Central Bank to open these three new branches. We’ll be going to areas where at the moment we are not present and for which our customers are yearning to have,” Olanrewaju said.
Presently, the bank has 22 branches in seven States of the Federation and it is still counting. The bank’s priority is to get more people into the financial services system. To achieve this, the bank is going to be doing agency banking in order to reach more customers and thereby enhance financial inclusion.
“We are going to introduce some products to the markets and we’ll expand existing ones. For instance our housing products have been very limited. We want to expand it this year and we are going to be bringing in some consumer products. We are also bringing in some non-financial products like solar panel comparatives sources of energy, amongst others,” he said.
With the objective of supporting the country in social economic development and reduction in poverty, the bank has been able to help over 300,000 customers in the last 5 years.
The bank has offered employment to about 600 staffs in Nigeria. “In terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we supported during the COVID-19. We also have a program – girl child education which is up and running especially in the North. We’ve also helped the Nigeria railway by providing them with chairs, if you go to the railway station you will see the chairs branded in the name of Baobab,” the CEO said.
He said the bank has over 25,000 customers who have outstanding loans. This outstanding loans, he said is well over N15 billion. “When you put all this together that’s a whole lot of contribution that we have done to Nigeria”.
On the average, he said the bank disbursed about N3 billion every month to various people, ranging from access to a minimum of about N20,000 and a maximum of about N200 million. “So N3 billion on a monthly basis, you know what that means, these are some of the contributions we’ve been able to do over the last 5 years.
It is very important to talk about the transfer of knowledge and technology, Baobab is in 12 African countries and in China and you see ideas coming from other African countries with which we are building Baobab Nigeria. There’s transfer of knowledge, there’s transfer of ideas and there’s transfer of technology. All these are the things that we can point to our achievement in the last 12 years,” he said.
