BOI restates commitment to supporting businesses, fast-tracking Nigeria’s industrialisation

The Bank of Industry (BOI) has restated committed to supporting the industrialisation of Nigeria by providing flexible loan facilities and other advisory services to businesses.

The bank said it believes that businesses have the potential to improve no matter their level by providing them with the right support, whether financial or advisory.

It stated this during a courtesy visit by some staff of BOI to the management of the African Newspapers of Nigeria (ANN) Plc, publishers of Tribune titles, on Thursday in Ibadan, Oyo State.

The BOI team comprised South-West Marketing Consultant, BOI, Mrs Abimbola Osa-Ogieva; Project and Relationship Officer, BOI, Ibadan, Oyo State, Hilla-Handi Tom Midala and the representative of Ibbds Consulting Nigeria Limited and a BOI accredited consultant, Israel Adefila.

In his presentation Hilla-Handi said the bank provides different loan facilities to businesses depending on their peculiar needs, which informed the decision to create awareness about the bank’s offerings and arm prospective customers with necessary information to prepare for application.

He said, “We are a development financial institution aimed towards fast tracking industrialisation in the country. We support businesses, large, small and medium scale enterprises. As a state, there is a limit to what we do in our operations. We have core businesses that we do and we concentrate more on value addition; there has to be value added to what you do not just the buying and selling except in cases of locally-manufactured products.

“There are levels of facilities that we can support businesses with depending on the business’ level of operation. At the Oyo State office, we have the capacity to grant a loan of up to N2 billion. However, if your request is above N2 billion, we can refer you to our Lagos head office where we have the large enterprises that handle anything above N2 billion. These are some of the ways we support businesses in the country.

“In Oyo State, we are also aware that the state government has a goal of achieving a N10 trillion economy before the end of this tenure. So, we at our end are trying to see how we can contribute our quota towards the actualisation of that goal. This is part of it; encouraging businesses, getting them prepared and ensuring they have all necessary and up-to-date documents so they get these things ready to be able to access these facilities. We have a counterpart funding where smaller loans can be given to people who do smaller businesses, like N5 million, N10 million.

“All these categories of loans, there are requirements that need to be met before the bank will be able to seek management approval, then you meet the other terms and conditions before you can access the facility.”

On the purpose of its visit to the Nigerian Tribune, Mrs Osa-Ogieva said, “We have been going round introducing the Bank of Industry. It is the oldest development financial institution in Nigeria, owned by the Federal Government. It is established to support businesses and it cuts across various industries like those that are doing well, those that are not doing too well or newly established ones, we come in.

“We believe that every business can improve no matter its level. And some businesses already have relationships with banks and other financial institutions. That is why we thought that since Nigerian Tribune is doing well, we decided to introduce our services at the Bank of Industry so we can do business together. We came because we believe that the Nigerian Tribune can benefit from this offer from the Bank of Industry.”

In her response, the Chief Accountant, ANN Plc, Mrs Oluremi Olufisayo, appreciated the team for coming and expressed the company’s readiness to work with BOI to further improve its operations.

She added that with Nigerian Tribune’s years of operation, it has stood the sustainability test and other principles guiding the operations of a legal entity.

Olufisayo said, “We appreciate your coming because you have given us the leeway to access and lay our requests.

“Nigerian Tribune is the oldest newspaper in Nigeria and that confirms that the company has been doing well in the area of sustainability and in other principles guiding a legal entity. And I know you are comfortable with us in that area. We will be delighted to do business with you.”

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