Ecobank Nigeria has concluded plans to invest at least N70 billion in agriculture financing within the next three years.
The bank has also entered into a strategic partnership with the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) with a N15 billion agricultural investment scheme being the first tranche in agricultural value chain financing.
According to NIRSAL, the partnership between both institutions is in line with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s request that banks provide more funding to the agriculture sector.
Announcing the partnership in Lagos during a business meeting with the management of NIRSAL, managing director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan, also noted that the N15 billion dedicated funding with NIRSAL guarantee was for an initial takeoff tranche and rollovers would be done at the completion of each cycle.
He said, “Agriculture is pivotal to the success and development of any nation’s economy. We are therefore committed to working with NIRSAL to open up the vast opportunities that abound in agriculture. Ecobank has done it in other countries across the continent, so we can do the same in Nigeria.”
Further, Akinwuntan noted that with a larger African footprint than any other bank in the world operating in West, Central, East and Southern Africa, Ecobank is the only bank that spans 36 African countries yet operates a truly integrated African network.
financiers and farmers. It is in view of this that we have created innovative tools, techniques, methodologies and established strategic partnerships like this, to create a symbiotic relationship between all actors along the Agricultural value chain.”
