Access Bank Plc, a leading financial institution has enhanced its Agriculture Desk for improved value for customers and stakeholders to ensure food security in Nigeria. The bank also unveiled a Development Banking desk to deal with international NGOs, local NGOs, and donor fund agencies.
This was made known at the bank’s Agriculture and Development Desks press conference held in Lagos on Tuesday.
According to the bank, the Agriculture Desk positions the bank at the forefront of Nigeria’s agricultural financing market segment to serve and support agribusinesses in Nigeria in line with the CBN’s directive while the Development Banking Desk will cater and focus on Non-Profit organisations.
In his opening speech, the Team Lead, Agric Business, Commercial Banking Division, Emmanuel Makinwa said the desk catered to the entire value chain in the sector.
Makinwa said, “Part of what we do is to give advisory service to our customers, it may not look significant but it is very key in agribusiness. We also ensure that our customers have market linkage, that is to ensure that our customers have the market for whatever they are producing. For technology, there is a plan already that we will unveil.
“We are organising webinars specifically for women. We notice that they don’t have too much access to finances, so part of it is financial literacy. The bank is working on that to ensure that they have access to finance. This is part of what we are looking at doing.”
Makinwa added that, “The group has contributed a lot to agric business in the country. As of today, the group has invested over N200bn in agribusinesses which has benefitted over 10,000 businesses spread across smallholder farmers, SMEs, farmer associations or groups and large corporates, and this has helped greatly in terms of food security, helping our customers to grow their business and helped in job creation.”
Speaking on the Development Banking, Head, Development Banking Desk, Commercial Banking, Ambur Sule, noted that a desk is a specialised unit within Access Bank that is focused on not-for-profit organisations and also deals with international NGOs, local NGOs, and donor fund agencies.
She said: “Development Banking Desk manages not-for-profit issues that we have within the bank. It aligns its strategies with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. With our Development Banking Desk, Access Bank wants to position itself as the first bank of choice for the not-for-profit organisations that already exist in the country and many that plan to come into this space.
“We are creating a one-stop shop for this sector of the market. Once these organisations interact with us, they shouldn’t have any reason as to why they do not want to partner and identify with us in all their dealings.”
In addition, the Group Head, Commercial Banking, Nsisak Usoro, said, “Our objective this year and I believe what we will drive next year is to support food security. The amount that we will set aside for 2024, will be determined towards the end of the year.”
The Executive Director of Commercial Banking, Hadiza Ambursa, said that when it comes to the agricultural business, the bank works to access funding from multiple sources for its customers.
According to her, “There are different sources of funding available and we try to access these. Sometimes the Central Bank of Nigeria has intervention funds, we access these for our customers, we have international entities that are willing to provide finance for different sectors, say agriculture for example, we access these as well. So it is a combination of risk and sustainable funding as well.”