Dr Dikko Radda, the Director-General, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) says the establishment of rating agency will enhance Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) access to funds.
Radda said this on Friday in Lagos, at a Roundtable organised for Banks on the proposed Small and Medium Enterprise Rating Agency (SMERA) entitled; “De-Risking SMEs Lending Landscape’’.
According to him, the initiators of the SMERA have assiduously been working for some time now in ensuring the realisation of the dream of putting in place a functioning agency in Nigeria.
“The establishment of SMERA is intended to reduce the turnaround time in MSMEs’ access to funds and other critical resources.
“It is also aimed at MSME’s corporate acceptability, trade credits and other important growth opportunities,’’ he said.
He said the agency was collaborating with the Bank of Industry (BoI), Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Dun and Bradstreet to champion the establishment.
“It is deliberate that we are all here to discuss the workability of this initiative and also provide an opportunity to harvest inputs that will facilitate the seamless commencement and operations.
“I am confident that the players in the Commercial Banking Sector will now begin to view MSME’s with customised lenses made for them,’’ he said.
Similarly, Mr Mohammed Suleyman, the Director, Financial System Strategy (FSS) 2020, said FSS had always been in the forefront along with other critical partners to find the solution to the challenges slowing down the growth of MSMEs.
According to Suleyman, the challenges include lack of management skills, access to affordable finance, poor access to market and lack of corporate governance.
“Others are lack of appropriate technology, low production, poor access to appropriate workspace and lack of central identify database.
“To challenge these challenges that have slowed down the growth of the sector in Nigeria, the secretariat developed some initiatives that could mitigate some of the issues.
“The establishment of the rating agency will be a bold step to promoting credibility and create comfort to financial institutions to encourage credit to the MSMSs.
“The rating agency is a key enabler for the smooth functioning of SMEs financing ecosystem,’’ he said.
Also speaking, Dr Ezekiel Oseni, Chief Risk Officer, BoI, urged all banks in the country to support the initiative.
According to Oseni, financial institutions that participate in the initiative stand to benefit a lot.
and then