Nigeria@60: Peterside Wants Banks To Give Nigerians Easier Access To Loans

TRACKING___Speaking as a guest on Covenant Christian Centre’s flagship programme, The Platform, Mr Peterside said a large percentage of funds that banks in Nigeria have within their coffers must be made available for lending.

“We have to make sure that all the funds or at least a large percentage of funds that banks and other financial institutions have available are actually available for lending,” Mr Petersided said.

The economist said it is sad that a look at the balance sheets of Nigerian banks shows that they have huge sums of funds which are locked up in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to Mr Peterside, “these are the types of challenges we are to solve” for the nation to attain financial inclusion.

He further stated that more important than just having money to be lent is the fact that the nation must progressively enable freer access to the funds which will be borrowed by Nigerians.

“What should qualify people for credit should be the quality of the project they want to go into and less of how much collateral they have to offer,” Mr. Peterside stressed.

The dynamic entrepreneur noted, however, that this is a long project, adding that the concept is something that various countries struggle with.