DEVELOPMENT Bank of Nigeria (DBN) on Wednesday warned of looming global employment crisis if strategic intervention are not used to stem the tide of population explosion.
Chairman of DBN Dr Shehu Yahaya who gave the warning when Queen Maxima of Netherlands and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for inclusive finance for Development visited the bank in Abuja urged the envoy to use her office to push urgently for increased access to finance for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in order to enhance financial inclusion.
MSMEs are collectively the largest employers in many low-income countries including Nigeria, yet their viability is being threatened by lack of access to risk management tools such as savings, insurance and credit.”
“Their growth is often stifled by restricted access to credit, equity and payments services.”
He however, said, “global pursuit of financial inclusion as a vehicle for economic development has had a positive impact in Nigeria to some degree as the exclusion rate reduced from 53% in 2008 to 46.3% in 2010.”
Yahaya disclosed that DBN has started its lending operations with the provision of over N5 billion to three National Microfinance banks for onward lending to 20,000 MSMEs across every sector of the economy.
“DBN believes that access to appropriate levels of financial services in the MSME segment can boost job creation, raise income, reduce vulnerability and increase investment in human capital.
In her response, Queen Maxima said she was at DBN to understand what the bank is doing and use her office to support and help in the success of financial inclusion as well as show best practices required to achieve financial inclusion.
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