NIRSAL MFB LAUNCHES A DEDICATED CREDIT FACILITY FOR WOMEN

Collins Imoudu Andrew - 

 

NIRSAL Microfinance Bank (NMFB) has launched a new credit facility christened NMFB Amazon Loan for women entrepreneurs to deepen its financial inclusion drive.

 

The news filtered into public space after the bank's media team sent out informative and educative posts across its social media platforms. 

 

After a series of initial suspense posts heralding the big announcement, the first post reads thus, “Introducing NMFB AMAZON LOAN: The Amazon Loan is a set of concessions that grant easy access to the bank’s loan products to women and women-owned businesses who come together as groups.”

 

The second post listed four products the loan contains and itemised them as follows “(i) NMFB SME: For women groups who are micro to small scale entrepreneurs, the self-employed, and traders. (ii) NMFB Agriculture Finance Facility (AFF): For women groups who are subsistence-level farmers. (iii) NMFB Petty Cash Now-Now: for women groups who are low-income earners/artisans. (iv) NMFB Consumer Asset Finance Facility (CAFF): For women groups who need assets (Generators, refrigerators, Televisions etc.) for personal or business use.”

 

One of the main points and attractions about the newly launched credit facility is who can access the NMFB Amazon Loan. The credit facility is for female customers who successfully form into groups and are willing to cross-guarantee each other. The provision that allows interested women applicants to cross-guarantee themselves also made the mandatory demand for collateral needless. However, there would be a need to provide additional third-party guarantors for each applicant.

 

What this implies is that the loan comes with two layers of guarantee. The first is the cross-guarantee which the female applicants avail themselves, and the one individual applicant provides to make it a watertight deal. 

 

As per interest rate, NMFB Amazon Loan would be competitive given that the product was born out of the desire to allow women easy access to funds for their business growth or expansion.

 

“Because the product aimed at providing easy access to the capital needed to improve their businesses, the interest rate on the NMFB Amazon Loan, in addition to being very competitive, also guarantees a discount on interest rates charged on our regular loan products.” The post reads.

 

Other information members of the public should be aware of are; that the NMFB Amazon Loan is for a group of like-minded women and is released to individual members after meeting the loan criteria and assessment.

 

Repayment of the loan is subject to a similar arrangement, but group members are responsible for the repayment of the loan availed to them. It is important to note that the group structure and the cross-guarantee policy place a monitoring/follow-up responsibility on members.

 

NMFB Amazon Loan is a women-only facility and not available to men. However, they are welcome to access other loan products from the bank. 

 

Women applicants of the NMFB Amazon Loan can access as low as N100,000 and up to N1,000,000. However, the duration to repay the loan depends on the business the applicant is engaged in, the capacity to repay and other factors to be determined by NIRSAL Microfinance Bank.

 

Actual and potential customers interested in leveraging this opportunity can either walk into any location of NIRSAL Microfinance Bank nationwide to apply or visit its website at https://www.nmfb.com.ng for additional information. 

Collins Imoudu Andrew is a Media entrepreneur and publisher of Agribusiness, Entaprano, and Spectacles Magazines. He can be reached via colinzano@gmail.com.