Speaking at a media launch of the outfit Tuesday in Lagos, Group Managing Director, UBA, Mr. Tony Elumelu, noted that the un-banked and under-banked segment of the populace are faced with a consistent challenge of access to finance. This, he stated, prompted the move by UBA to pursue regulatory approval to establish a microfinance bank, asserting that UBA is the first universal bank to secure a licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to operate a microfinance bank in Nigeria.

“At UBA MFB, anyone – literate or not – with viable legitimate business, trade, vocation, no matter how small, can walk up to our bank and receive empowerment to give wings to their dreams.

“Given the dominant role of Nigerian financial institution in the African sub-region, we believe we are faced with a challenge and opportunity at the same time, to extend finance to people who ordinarily would not have access to finance.

“This group comprises of women and men without access to micro-credit to support there daily economic activities and small businesses, which need some advisory services and financial management services to move up the scale of their businesses.

“These people have been having it difficult to access finance because the African business environment, largely up till now, has no financial infrastructure to support this segment of the African population. UBA has planned to overcome these challenges by operating the new bank from within all the branches of the bank in the urban and rural communities, while separate structures are being put in place to meet the upsurge in demand of services by the micro-banking public,” Elumelu stated.

Also speaking at the event, Managing Director, UBA MFB, Mrs. Lizzy Osunde, said that the establishment of the micro-finance bank was partly in response to the CBN's request that universal banks help support the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eradicating poverty and enhancing financial empowerment of the informal sector.

She said that UBA MFB was issued operating licence by the CBN on April 25 and commenced operations on April 28, 2008 in Oke-Arin market with a capital base of N3 billion, which is in excess of regulatory requirement.

“Our vision is to become the biggest financial partner of the poor in Africa. We have put in place customized systems and processes to ensure that our target customer who is currently excluded from conventional financial services as a result of peculiar circumstances is catered for with a full range of world-class financial services.

“We are conversant with the challenges being faced by existing MFBs but we have technology in place to get us to the market quickly and effectively mobilizing, disbursing and ensuring adequate repayment of micro-credit in the most efficient way.

“Micro-finance is not about giving handouts to the poor, which is why at UBA MFB we seek to create an enabling environment where people with legitimate business ideas, vocational aptitude and a burning desire to succeed but without financial resources to actualize their dreams are given needed financial assistance that are customized.” in an economically viable structure to help move micro and small businesses gradually and systematically towards financial independence,” Osunde stated.


by Yinka Kolawole
From www.vanguardngr.com