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| COO GEEP, Office of the VP, Uzoma Nwagba, Ed, BOI, Toyin Adeniji & 2 of the beneficiaries. |
The Executive Director, Bank of Industry, Toyin Adeniji yesterday said that they will not relent until all Nigerians who are willing, have access to loan irrespective of their status or level of education.
Speaking at the unveiling of ‘Trader Moni’ initiative at Ojuwoye market in Lagos, Adeniji said that the programme which has been activated nationwide will support 2 million Nigerians to grow their business.
She also disclosed that the goal of the scheme was to take financial inclusion down to the grassroot whereby pure water seller, bead seller, food seller, okada rider among others can have access to loans to expand their business without any collateral.
The “President Muhammadu Buhari led administration has recognised the contribution of petty traders to economic development and identified the fact that some of them may not have what the commercial banks may require to grant loan, so he supports this initiative to help them grow their business.
“This ‘Trader Moni’ initiative is mobile phone driven. After your details have been captured by the agent and sent to BOI system for validation, within 48 hours you will get cash notification in your mobile wallet account. You can then either transfer the cash to your bank account or cash it out at any mobile money agent office around.
“At the beginning you can access N10,000 and pay back N10,250 to be qualified for N15,000. Once you payback N15,375 you will then qualify for N20,000 loan, when you pay back N21,000 you will then get N50,000. All these stages have duration of six months interval to pay back.”
“If you wish you can pay back before the six month grace elapses and then access bigger loans. To pay back, you enter some of the banks we have partnered with such as Fidelity, Wema Bank, GtBank, UBA, Heritage Bank, Stanbic Bank, Sterling Bank, Union Bank Jaiz Bank, tell them that you want to pay BOI-GEEP loan for PayDirect.
Corroborating her view, Chief Operating Officer, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, GEEP, Mr. Uzoma Nwagba said that GEEP consists of three products, ‘Farmer Moni’ for farmers which avails them the opportunity to access up to N300,000 loan each.
“Then there is ‘Market Moni’ which targets market women. Traders and artisans that are a little bigger and are more structured, can get between N50,000 and N100,000.
The initiative is available across the country.
Nwagba urged beneficiaries to ensure they pay back to avail others, the opportunity to benefit too, “All this initiative aims to do is to expand financial inclusion because we have over 23 million Nigerians that are financially excluded, and the present administration aims to reach them so that they can grow their businesses.
