MFB Laments Inadequate Infrastructure

Accion Microfinance
Bank (MFB) has said inadequate infrastructure was one of the major setbacks to financial inclusion in the country.
The Managing Director of the bank, Mrs Bunmi Lawson, said this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
“Our main challenge is infrastructure like electricity and internet services; those are the things we need in order to provide access to finance.
“If there is stable electricity and internet connection, you will not need a building. With just a small device, which is your phone, you are able to offer banking services and go everywhere.
“However, because that is not existing it makes serving the people so challenging and expensive,’’ Lawson said.
She urged the Federal Government to look into the area of infrastructure to enable easy access and enhance financial inclusion in the society.
The bank chief said the bank in a bid to carry everyone in the society along, provided soft loans to physically challenged people in the society.
“We have what we call people living with disability loans.
“We have disbursed over one million naira through this programme, though it is not a lot but we are just starting.
“We launched the programme with their various associations such as the albino association, people living with disabilities association and the like.’’
Lawson said that the programme was designed to provide access to those that seemed to have limited access in the country.
She stressed that people living with disabilities like other vulnerable people needed to be encouraged and provided access to finance so they could also own and run their own businesses.
The managing director said that the bank made access to finance easy for vulnerable people by making the bank buildings accessible and preparing easy to read and understand loan documents.
“In Accion, all these were put into consideration in the designing of the product.
On bad loans, Lawson said of the total loans disbursed by the bank, less than one per cent had been written off as bad so far.
She explained that the bank was able to do this through proper due diligence.
The bank chief said, “we focus on giving loans to people with character, we look at your capacity but more importantly, your willingness to repay.’’