Our 5-year strategic plan would meet customers’ needs – Jaiz

The Managing Director, Jaiz Bank Plc, Hassan Usman yesterday disclosed that the bank has crafted a five-year strategic plan to achieve organic growth through partnering with other players in the industry.
He said this in Abuja during a chat with journalists where he said the five year strategic plan would enable it provide better services to its customers, restating the bank’s vision to be a key leader in subSahara Africa.
Usman also pointed out that the bank would soon begin the disbursement of the $20 million facility for operators in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector of the economy.
Responding to enquiries by our correspondent on the disbursement of the loan, Usman said the bank would soon begin the disbursement, adding that the fund would be disbursed before the end of the year.
He said, “On the SME financing line from the ICD, when you signed publicly that is when you start to do the work and tidy up to make sure the agreement and all the conditions precedent are met.
“We have finished all of that and we have lined up a number of customers desirous of benefiting from this facility and very soon we will start to disburse to these customers.
“We believe that before the end of this year, we would have done if not all of the disbursement of the $20m but substantial part would have gone before the end of this year.” For instance, be said the bank had increased its visibility in Lagos by opening more branches, adding that this would be extended to other regions of the country.
He said, “We are having a balance sheet size that is growing by 20 per cent year-on-year and our branch network has increased from 27 to 32 and we hope to increase this to 40 branches before the end of the year.” On funding for agriculture, he said that the Central Bank of Nigeria had reviewed it’s framework of the commercial agricultural credit scheme to accommodate the funding structure of the bank.
He said, “The Central Bank and the Federal Government has been trying to ensure that financing get to the farmers.
To address the challenges, they came up with the Anchor Borrower Scheme and similar scheme.
“We are also now going to be participating in the commercial agric scheme of the central bank because they have now fine-tuned the scheme to accommodate our type of financing structure.
“Hitherto, we were not able to access it because it was on interest based but it has been modified and we have a number of customers that will benefit from that.”

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