First Bank, SMEDAN Sign MoU To Promote SMEs

First Bank Nigeria has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) that will  promote business activities for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and also accelerate digitisation and development of the sub sector in the country.

The MoU, signed at First Bank headquarters, Marina, Lagos, saw the two parties put pen on paper to consummate the deal that will enable the parties promote business activities for the MSMEs and equally add credibility to the SMEs registered under SMEDAN as they will be exposed to trainings, mentoring and financial education that would enable them to run their businesses properly.

The chief executive officer(CEO), First Bank, Dr Adesola Adeduntan, who was represented by the executive director, Chief Risk Officer, First Bank, Mr Segun Alebiosu, said: “this is a great honour to have you here with us as we jointly embark on this remarkable and highly rewarding journey that is set to change not just our bank and your organisation, but the fortune of our dear nation, Nigeria.

“At FirstBank, we understand the critical roles that SMEs play in the growth of a nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) through diversification of the economy, job creation, wealth distribution and social stability. This is one of the driving forces behind our SME connect initiative through which we offer bespoke financing and non-financing solutions to meet the needs of our growing SME community.

“For instance, in 2022, we disbursed about N455 billion in value, via tailor-made loan products to support SMEs in various industry segments and we have also continued to deploy various innovative e-payment products and services to aid SMEs’ trade and collections and in the process, create a seamless experience of doing business.”

Adeduntan commended the amazing work that SMEDAN is doing with the MSMEs sub sector in Nigeria by linking MSMEs to internal and external sources of finance, appropriate technology, and technical skills which is one of the biggest motivations that inspired it to embark on the partnership engagement.

He congratulated everyone for being witnesses of this budding life-changing opportunity, saying, “as we deliberate on the value propositions of this partnership, I encourage everyone to see the big picture of FirstBank being the credible partner for SMEDAN.”

In his response, the director general, SMEDAN, Olawale Fasanya, stated that SMEDAN was happy to be partnering with First Bank in promoting the group’s SMEs in the country.

Fasanya is of the opinion that trust is the major issue affecting the growth of SMEs and most times when the people know that the government is involved, they see it as a dividend of democracy not to pay back.

To him, “we are trying our best to play a lot of advocacy to let SMEs know that there is no free money anywhere and also to discourage the government from being directly involved in lending to SMEs.”

The SMEDAN DG believes access to finance is still major challenge  in the country, especially, for those who are just going into business and the aspiring one, adding that, “we bank see that it is micro or nano business, they do not want to touch that aspect and these set are in the majority of population.”

On the aspect of infrastructure, he said: “SMEDAN is not in control of that, but we have plan to create a common facilities, which will take care of infrastructure problem where SMEs do not need to invest in generator or offices  but can come there and used for production, then go and sell afterwards.”