The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Bosak Microfinance Bank Limited, Mr. Kola Bello, has enjoined small business owners, especially customers of the bank, to form different groups in order to have access to facilities.
He said that the bank used such groups as securities.
He said this at the bank’s Group Leaders Congress organised in Lagos on Thursday.
Bello said, “We have started group lending since August last year. Microfinance banks are targeted at the poor; and to access fund is not easy, hence the need for group creation.’
He said the bank operated group accounts and individual accounts for customers.
Bello said, “If you don’t encourage the poor to save, they will not save. Poverty unites people, and that is what we are capitalising on to ensure that poverty is eradicated in our country.”
He also said that the bank would employ more Nigerians to facilitate its penetration in Lagos State and its environs.
The bank, which had more than tripled its customer base in the past one year, rewarded all leaders of the groups following their performance in the past year.
Bello, in the last quarter of last year, had said the capital base of the bank was N160m, targeting over N500m this year.
The bank, according to him, has over 22,000 savers with about 6,000 borrowers.