The African Development Bank, ADB, has given a $100 million credit facility to Intercontinental Bank to accelerate economic growth, social development and economic integration of African nations. Mandla Gantsho, vice-president, operations, ADB, expressed confidence in Intercontinental Bank’s ability to deliver results in its quest for real sector development, saying that this was why ADB partnered with the Bank among all Nigerian banks as beneficiary of the $100 million facility. “There are very clear reasons for choosing Intercontinental this time. It is one of the strongest banks in Nigeria. It has one of the strongest and most capable board and management team and it has got the right focus in as far as development initiatives and programmes are concerned.
Explaining the reason ADB chose Intercontinental Bank, he said the bank had well-developed competence in the small medium enterprises, SMEs, sector and that particular sector create the largest number of jobs and promotes economic development on long-term basis. According to him, with the bank’s name, corporate profile, wide coverage and capital adequacy, Intercontinental Bank is in a position to deliver good spread of credit to support needy small and medium-scale enterprises in the continent. “The ADB is committed to supporting this institution with comprehensive package, such as the line of credit. We hope that the support will go a long way indeed in strengthening the real sector in particular while enhancing its impact on the lives of the people of Nigeria,” Gantsho said.
The facility is expected to assist Intercontinental Bank implement its 2008/2012 real sector business
plan which Gantsho noted aligned with ADB’s strategic plan. He also noted that the facility was the largest and longest tenured ADB has ever done with any Nigerian institution.
Erastus Akingbola, group chief executive, Intercontinental Bank, said the money would be utilised in transforming SMEs in Nigeria. “With this fund, which is a lot cheaper than what we can source from Nigerian depositors, we will be able to support them better, so the entrepreneur will be able to come to Intercontinental and borrow. This is the largest of such credit made available to any bank in Nigeria and the tenure is seven years. So we believe this is good for Nigeria and good for our customers,” Akingbola said.
He explained that the bank would advance the facility to SMEs with track record: “For example we want to see whether such SME is already borrowing from the banks? Are they performing well on the loan they’ve borrowed? We won’t give to serial bad debtors that go all over the banks borrowing and as such we will be careful as to who gets this facility.”
The Intercontinental Bank boss stated that the decision to go to ADB was informed by the paucity of long-term funds in Nigeria’s money market adding that the loan facility granted by the ADB was a beginning of another phase of mutually beneficial partnership between the continental financial institution and Nigerian banking sector.
