The organiser of the award presented the award to the Bank at the London Stock Exchange recently, in recognition of its relentless drive to widen the spectrum of financial support to the nation’s entrepreneurs, especially the micro, small and medium scale enterprises and the players in the creative industry.
The award, according to industry players, was a boost the bank’s efforts to raise funds from the international market to finance its various intervention programmes in the nation’s real sector, especially the fast growing creative industry.
On assumption of duty barely two years ago, the Managing Director of BoI, Mr. Olukayode Pitan, had hinted on plans to raise $500million from the international market.
In his remarks at the occasion, the Bank’s CEO, thanked the organisers of the award, assuring that the BoI would not relent on its efforts to boost Nigeria’s real sector through an increased support to the MSMEs
He said the Bank had realised over $100million profit within the ongoing financial year.
While restating the Bank’s commitment to financial prudence, Pitan expressed the determination of the institution to raise more funds to support more ventures with the potential to generate employment opportunities for the youths.
Pitan recently disclosed that a total of N44.34 billion was disbursed to beneficiaries of the federal government’s social intervention programmes at the end of 2018. He said through the implementation of the N-Power programme, one of the social protection schemes, soft loans valued at N15.34 billion were provided to 199,989 beneficiaries to purchase work-tools in sectors such as agriculture, health and education.
He added that under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), which is also a component of the social investment programme, the Bank facilitated the disbursement of N29 billion to 1,550,000 beneficiaries nationwide through its flagship intervention namely TraderMoni and MarketMoni.