MFB disburses N7.8bn loan to farmers, traders, others in Edo

The management of Fast Microfinance Bank Limited says it has so far disbursed N7,799,094,397 billion to customers, mainly farmers, traders and artisans n the last seven years in Edo State.

It added that a total N841,912,694 million loan out of N7.8 billion disbursed was granted to farmers, traders and artisans in the same period in Edo State.

Okon Osemwonta Inyang, the Group Head, Marketing of the bank stated this in an exclusive interview with BusinssDay in Benin City, adding that the financial institution has a customer base of 9,455 while 928 clients have benefited from the loans disbursed in seven years.

The Group Head, Marketing, who explained that the bank has a unit microfinance bank licence, noted that it provides banking services to farmers, artisans, savers and traders.

While attributing the successes the bank had recorded in the past few years of its existence to experienced management teams, he noted the bank is geared towards taking care of the unbanked people in the society

He also added that the pro-poor orientated products of the establishment had helped a great deal to drive the retail end of the financial market.

“The bank has various products as we have in commercial banks. We also have products like fast saving that we are known for and has helped us to help our customers in the act of savings and helping to build capital for their business.

“Those products have place us on a good pedestal with the customers and the people. Our bank is one of the few microfinance banks that is digitally driven as we run an online real time system more than other banks.

“When we came on board, we were one of the first microfinance banks to be on the NIPS platform and personalize and code branded ATM card, functional POS machines in Edo State.

“So we believe that it is not about opening many branches but we make people have direct access to banking service. This has been our success story in the last seven years.

“We have well over 9,455 customers and it is the products that you sell that endears customers to you. If what we do is only to give out loans for example we won’t have such customers. We have other added values like digital banking, personalize target digital savings”,he said.

Speaking on the reasons behind the establishment of the bank, Inyang explained that the founders of the bank saw that there are a lot of people who are on unbanked, therefore decided that there would be need to fill the gap.