The financial and agriculture experts made their positions recently at the fourth yearly Symposium of Nigerian Microfinance Platform themed: “Serving the agricultural sector through micro-banking”, in collaboration with LA FAYETTE, AFOX, LAPO Microfinance Bank limited, Accion Microfinance Bank and NPF Microfinance Bank Plc in Benin City, Edo State. Presenting a paper with topic, “Perspective of serving the agricultural sector through microfinance banks”, Marx said AFOS initiative in agricultural finance is aimed at supporting Microfinance banks (MFBs) and agribusinesses in Nigeria. He noted that there is a great potential and interest in some MFBs to expand agricultural lending and implored the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to offer refinance for term loans (1-3 years) in Naira to MFBs to enable MFBs lend for small equipment, without policy strings attached. Marx also called on the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) to request MFBs and Micro-Finance Institutes (MFIs) to express their interest rates and charges as Annual Percentage Rate (APR).He added that micro-lending will certainly remain the domain of MFBs noting that the big questions are areas of competence, capacity to serve and interest. Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer ,LAPO Microfinance Bank, Dr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe harped on the need for greater engagement between the MFBs and the CBN’s Development Finance Officers (DFOs) at the State Level and the continuous capacity building of Microfinance institutions on agricultural finance.

Source: The Guardian May 29, 2018 03:00 UTC