One of the leading financial institution in Nigeria, Access Bank Plc has commenced the disbursement of the N50 billion interest-free loan for business owners in Nigeria.
For those who don’t know, the interest-free loan and grant by Access Bank is set aside for micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs) which were destroyed by hoodlums in the wake of the protest against police brutality in the country.
According to a statement by the Deputy Group Managing Director, Access Bank, Mr. Roosevelt Ogbonna, “From Monday, October 26th, 2020 we will start collecting application from customers. There is an interest-free loan as well as a grant also embedded in that.”
“The loan will be targeted at customers of our bank across its MSME business, commercial banking customers as well as corporate banking customers affected by the looting and arson in some parts of the country last week.”
“The idea is to support working capital as well as access finance. It has a maximum tenor of 24 months for the access finance and 12 months for the working capital. The structure is flexible and it is to align with the customers’ cash flow. The term facility would have a moratorium period of six months and then we would structure the repayment following the customers’ own cash flow cycle. Both are interest-free.”
“For the grant, we have broken it into two. Firstly is that for youth empowerment and community development. The youth empowerment is in two parts. We have a segment of the grant that is focused on supporting the tech industry and we have another that is focused on skill development, which is for those that are for tailors, barbers, mechanics, criteria.”
“The idea is that our branches are all over the country, so whatever skill you have, go to any of our branches and you will get whatever support you require.”
It is interesting to note that, Access Bank had before now announced that; “Now more than ever, we remain committed to our purpose of impacting lives positively. In light of the recent occurrences, we will be supporting Nigerian businesses with N50 billion interest-free loans and grants.”
