ENTERPRISE54 – Gbenga Shobo, an official of one of the top 3 leading banks in Nigeria First Bank, has disclosed the lender released about N46bn ($283m) to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the country within the last 12 months.

With the establishment of a N220bn ($1.35bn) intervention fund by the federal government due to low access to capital suffered by SMEs in the country, First Bank executive director, retail banking south Gbenga Shobo, said the bank saw the need to provide financial support to SMEs while citing enterprise as one of its brand pillars of success.

Mr Shobo revealed that not only did the bank have its maiden SME national conference in Lagos last year with over 500 SME participants from different sectors of the economy, it also involved SMEs across the country mainly those in Lagos, Aba, Port Harcourt, Kano and Ibadan.

The program would be expanding its reach to the hinterland to impact more SMEs for capacity building.

“We are now going to start working with the traders, so that they will start using their shops and stocks as securities. We are collaborating with an online e-commerce site that will allow all our SME customers to go to the website and sell their goods. This gives their goods more visibility and people can see and buy”, he explained.