The Sterling Bank Plc has launched new initiative called the “Market Women Quick Cash.”
The initiative was launched in partnership with the Afrigrant, a non- governmental organisation (NGO), and intended to give market women access to credit and bring them into the formal sector where they can benefit from financial advisory services, capacity building and mentorship.
Disclosing this at the launch of the initiative which took place, last week, at the Entrepreneur Research and Development centre Kaduna, the bank’s managing director, Mr Yemi Adeola, said that the proposition was specifically designed to provide access to quick loan services for women.
Adeola, represented by the bank’s company secretary/legal adviser, Justina Lewa, said: “We believe the future of banking resides in the hand of the customer and we must begin to drive that paradigm shift by empowering them from now.
“Adult women constitute over 50m of Nigeria’s population and only about 31% of this population is banked, according to EFInA access to financial services in Nigeria survey 2014.
“The business case for targeting women is simple. They are the more excluded gender. More so, 21.4m females (42.7% of the total female population) are financially excluded, 15m of these women are earning income frequently.”
In her goodwill message, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Rabi Abdulsalam, said that the Quick Cash initiative would help governments to cushion the effects of the current economic recession and allow women entrepreneurs gain access to fund to grow their business.
She said: “It is on this note that l am happy with the idea of having private sector operators coming together to bring this noble innovation of giving out loans to women at 9 percent interest rate, zero collateral, to enable women play active role in the economic development of the country at a time when the economy is in recession.”
