7,000 businesses accessed DBN’s first time loan in 2020

The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) has disclosed that about 7,000 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) were able to access first-time loans from the DBN courtesy of the Bank’s loan disbursement in 2020.

This was disclosed by Ijeoma Ozulumba, the executive director/chief financial officer of DBN, at the maiden edition of DBN Techpreneur Summit held in Lagos on Thursday.

Delivering her opening remarks at the summit, themed: ‘Starting Local, Scaling Global’, the DBN executive said the bank disbursed N190 billion during the year 2020, stating that 180,000 SMEs had benefited from DBN loan since it commenced operations in 2017.

“Since 2017 2hen the bank started, we’ve given loans to over 180,000 small businesses and those loans amount to over N400b in various sectors of the economy and a lot of that also to tech-based start-ups. In 2020, DBN disbursed N190 billion and 7000 of those SMEs accessed funding for the first time,” she said.

According to her, the Techpreneur Summit underscores the ambition of DBN. “This underscores where our ambitions lie in creating a favourable space in the ecosystem for tech. The future is hinged on technology, so apart from the global trend, locally we continue to see that technology is now about 18% of GDP. ICT is actually the fastest growing sector contributing to our GDP. Apart from that, technology and digital transformation is not just a megatrend, it underpins all the other megatrends in finance, engineering, and climate action which is topical right now.

Read also: 32 SMEs win $4m USAID/Nigeria COVID-19 food security challenge

“So this shows how important this event is, and the commitment of the bank. Our three-fold mandate is lending, providing partial credit guarantee and capacity building. The capacity-building aspect is one we take seriously and is why we are here today for this summit.”

She further stated that the summit will provide the SMEs tech community the platform to have good conversations, network engagement, instigate startups, and scaling opportunities for existing businesses as they get to meet with investors and partnering financial institutions.

She noted that the summit aims to drive the technology sector and accelerate its impact on the social-economic development of Nigeria, by creating jobs, improving the lives of people and reducing poverty to ultimately scale up Nigeria’s global presence.

“This is the first DBN Techpreneur Summit, and I hope DBN will continue this every year. When I asked around, I found out that this summit is not just about having a conversation like this, it is for Techpreneurs to find the necessary network, and more importantly access to finance on both sides of debt and equity. If you are starting a tech business, the easier is equity side of things,” said Kyari Bukar, MD/Co-founder, Trans-Sahara Investment Corporation.

According to Bukar, We need to change our dependence on what we pick or drill from the surface of the earth. He believes that will make Nigeria and other Africa nations wealthy. Bukar posits that India is exporting $60b a year in software solutions and services; hence, Nigeria has the grey matter that can make a difference.

“What is happening globally is that factor-based economics are becoming irrelevant, I don’t mean they are dead, I am saying they are not exciting as they used to be. Today, everybody talks about a knowledge-based economy. The beauty of tech is that it is the number one catalyst in changing the way we do things. An example is the digitalization of the way we conduct business today,” said Bukar.