Magnus Uloh, risk officer, Blueridge Microfinance Bank has said that his bank is providing banking services to millions of Nigerians at their door steps.
Uloh, who made this known in a recent chat with journalists, said that Blueridge is providing door step banking services to deepen the country’s financial inclusion penetration.
He also disclosed that the disconnection between the fintech’s providing loan services to the economically disadvantaged Nigerians and the public is why there has been protests about the abuse and breach of privacy by some loan apps which have led to sanctions from the Federal Government.
He said to mitigate the situation, there is a need for sensitization and further education of the public about how the fintech sector works and improvement of service based on feedback from their clients
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In a chat recently, Uloh said clamping down on loan defaulters by going through their contact list is not a good way to recover loans, as his company does not indulge in such practices.
‘’We have professional customer-facing teams. We continuously train our staff on proper loan recovery methods in order to ensure issues like these don’t come up. We have a quality inspection team that regularly monitors the activities of customer-facing employees’’, he asserted.
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He said people run away with money because they feel that the banks providing the loans have their money and will survive without repaying, but they forget that when they borrow money and refuse to pay, it is a loss to the bank and the economy at large.
This is why people need to be sensitized so that they will take responsibility in paying back their loan as at when due.
He said they are sure of recovering the loans as in the process of disbursing the loans, they don’t need to have any interface with the customers as they have their own requirements and through meeting the conditions, the details are known.
He said their target audience are the economically active ones.
“These are people who have the mind of doing business but don’t have the financial means or resources to fulfil their business goals. What they need is to be able to access funds and derive sustainability in what they do.”
‘’That is why we target the low-income earners who form the larger population. Just like the economically active ones, they don’t really have access to the conventional banking system. Our platform gives us the opportunity to bring banking to their doorstep,” he added.
On their interest rate, he posits that it is relatively fair and quite competitive as they take into cognizance their target market, knowing that they are not the elites as they are people who are trying to survive in their business.
‘’We considered this and that is why we made our interest rate flexible and low’’, he stated.
