Therefore, empowering women to achieve their full potential is one of the most powerful ways to fight poverty.
In Nigeria like many other countries, women continue to face tremendous barriers to success; ranging from limited funding to grow their businesses, gender inequality, low-wage jobs, unfavourable business environment, inadequate support system, among others.
Female – owned businesses in Nigeria are among the leading ventures that lack financial support. It is common for women to be denied loans because of gender discrimination, cultural biases—many institutions tend to fund male-owned businesses.
Single-digit Loan Scheme for Women-owned Businesses
$100m Credit Facility for Women, Small Businesses
FirstBank said the deal will ssupport it to deliver financial solutions that help to address the challenge of limited access to capital faced by underbanked and underserved groups in the country.
As part of the new facility, a minimum of US$30 million will be allocated in the form of credit lines to women entrepreneurs. According to the premier banking institution, the facility will also support its ‘FirstGem’ gender-focused services offering, which takes steps to promote gender inclusion by improving lending and support to female entrepreneurs.
The new partnership between the bank and CDC, demonstrates a shared mission to spur sustainable, productive and inclusive growth in Nigeria.
“CDC’s commitment will facilitate an expanded offer by FirstBank to its clientele, which will accelerate financial inclusion and increase opportunities for marginalised groups, including an estimated 59 million unbanked Nigerians, to participate in the country’s formal economy. As such, the partnership will capitalise on the FirstBank’s expansive network of over 700 branches and 150,000+ agents, leveraging its market leading expertise to scale financial solutions to underbanked entrepreneurs and populations”, FirstBank said in a statement.
“In addition, CDC/BII will support FirstBank with a technical assistance programme which will build on the Bank’s knowledge base of the women-led and women-owned businesses in its portfolio, strengthening the Bank’s technical capabilities and ability to reinforce its commitment to gender-based initiatives. This will enable the Bank to further leverage the facility to provide vital funding to scale business growth across Nigeria’s market – increasing job creation and improving livelihoods throughout the country.
“The facility’s target to increase financial inclusion and opportunities for women, qualifies this facility under the 2x Challenge – a commitment by the development finance institutions (DFIs) of the G7 to mobilise capital to support increased economic empowerment for women in emerging economies. Moreover, the US$100 million commitment aligns with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 Gender Equality and Goal 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth”, the statement added.
Commenting on the partnership, Chief Executive of CDC Group, Nick O’Donohoe said: “Promoting financial inclusion is a key component for advancing sweeping productive and sustainable growth across both rural and urban areas in Nigeria. This facility will channel CDC’s flexible and long-term capital toward expanding the financial solutions made available to women entrepreneurs, who are often the drivers of small business ideas and services to their communities.
An elated Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, FirstBank, Adesola Adeduntan commented: “Beyond the mutual benefits this partnership offers to both organisations, this transaction offers yet, another occasion for FirstBank to contribute immensely, to the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals.
“Enabling financial inclusion for SMEs has been a strategic priority for FirstBank over the last 128 years. Similarly, FirstBank has been at the forefront of financially empowering women-owned and women-led businesses on the continent. This partnership with CDC/BII offers a fantastic opportunity to accelerate the momentum.
“At FirstBank, we remain ever committed to fostering financial inclusion, creating wealth for the underserved, enhancing access to quality education and health care, improving lives and empowering women.”
FirstBank, ELOY Foundation Business Shower for Female Entrepreneurs
In furtherance of its policy of empowering female business owners across the country, the ELOY Foundation, in partnership with FirstBank last month, unveiled the ELOY Foundation Business Shower.
According to FirstBank, the business Shower was created to support female entrepreneurs on their journey to building sustainable businesses.
The support from FirstBank will be carried out through the FirstGem loan scheme designed for female-owned or partnered MSMEs and its SMEConnect initiative.
The partnership focuses on key sectors of the economy and designed to have female entrepreneurs exposed to essential business skills like training, networking and the ELOY Foundation Business Toolkit, a compilation of business survival skills nuggets.
Also, the business shower will avail businesses a platform to pitch their ideas to win seed grants and join the ELOY Foundation Sustainable Empowerment Programme 2022. Participants will also be able to access the FirstGem single digit loan, where eligible.
The ELOY Foundation Business Shower was scheduled to hold in five locations – Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Kano and Abia between June and July.
The ELOY Awards Foundation Business Showers will offer an avenue to sustain women empowerment by providing entrepreneurial training and mentorship from experienced businessmen and women, arming participants with tools and information to help them grow their businesses.
According to Tewa Onasanya, Founder of the ELOY Awards Foundation, “It is not just enough to talk about empowering business owners, it is very important to sustain empowerment by providing guidance towards their business progress and giving them access to different resources to help them continue to thrive. MSMEs are the backbone of any nation and there is a great need to sustain this chain of the economy. It is on this common ground that FirstBank has partnered with the ELOY Team to contribute meaningfully in empowering women to achieve fulfilment in their chosen business endeavours.“
Speaking on the partnership, Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, FirstBank said: “We commend ELOY Foundation for their efforts on this initiative as the continued strengthening and inclusiveness of female driven business endeavours is essential to the growth of the national economy. We are happy to partner with ELOY Foundation on its Business Shower. Together, we will drive the entrepreneurial viability of participants and expose them to business nuggets that will take their business to the next level.”
The ELOY Awards Foundation was launched with the primary aim to empower women business owners through partnerships for access to grants and affordable finance, entrepreneurial training, mentoring and networking for sustainable empowerment.
It is aimed to empower thousands of women to do more by providing access to resources and business skills for them to be able to grow, transform and sustain their businesses, which will in turn benefit their families, the community and the society as a whole.
About First Bank of Nigeria
First Bank of Nigeria Limited (FirstBank) is the premier Bank in West Africa and the leading financial inclusion services provider in Nigeria for 128 years.
With over 750 business locations and over 150,000 Banking Agents spread across 99% of the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria, FirstBank provides a comprehensive range of retail and corporate financial services to serve its over 30 million customers. The Bank has an international presence through its subsidiaries, FBNBank (UK) Limited in London and Paris, FBNBank in the Republic of Congo, Ghana, The Gambia, Guinea, Sierra-Leone and Senegal, as well as a Representative Office in Beijing.
The Bank has been handy at promoting digital payment in the country and has issued over 10million cards, the first bank to achieve such a milestone in the country. FirstBank’s cashless transaction drive extends to having more than 10million people on its USSD Quick Banking service through the nationally renowned *894# Banking code and over 4.5 million people on FirstMobile platform.
Since its establishment in 1894, FirstBank has consistently built relationships with customers focusing on the fundamentals of good corporate governance, strong liquidity, optimised risk management and leadership. Over the years, the Bank has led the financing of private investment in infrastructure development in the Nigerian economy by playing key roles in the Federal Government’s privatisation and commercialisation schemes. With its global reach, FirstBank provides prospective investors wishing to explore the vast business opportunities that are available in Nigeria, an internationally competitive world-class brand and a credible financial partner.
FirstBank has been named “Most Valuable Bank Brand in Nigeria” six times in a row (2011 – 2016) by the globally renowned “The Banker Magazine” of the Financial Times Group; “Best Retail Bank in Nigeria” for seven consecutive years (2011 – 2017) by the Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards and “Best Bank in Nigeria” by Global Finance for 15 years.