The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) says only Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMCEs) with less than 250 employees and a turnover not above N1.1 billion are qualified to access its loans.
Mr Tony Okpanachi, the Managing Director, DBN, said this an interactive session with Senate ad hoc committee investigating uneven disbursement of its loans to various parts of the country.
Okpanachi said that most of the beneficiaries happened to be from the South because they possessed the necessary requirements for the loans.
“Our lending has criteria and they are the same with those set by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“We do a risk assessment of the Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) before they begin to lend to businesses.
“We don’t want to give out money and the money fritters away. So we track the end users of the loans yearly,” he said.
Okpanachi said that the bank had also observed that there were issues with interest-based banking and loans in the North.
“So, we have engaged two non-interest banks in Nigeria to cater for that region,” he said.
He also said that the DBN has asked participating financial institutions to build the capacity of small scale businesses, and train them on how to structure their businesses for them to be able to access the loans.
“For DBN, it’s a continuous process to get more businesses on board,” he said.
The Chairman of the committee, Sen. Sani Musa promised to convene a public hearing on the matter after the committee’s investigative hearing.