Nigeria plans to use a $3 billion loan it’s negotiating with the World Bank to tackle mounting debt in the power sector. Bloomberg When Bolanle Austen-Peters sought a loan for a cultural centre in Lagos, she was told there was no business case. Then she found an art-loving banker to back her. Now she is lighting up stages and screens around the world.
Ms Austen-Peters, a lawyer, was 34 and fresh from quitting the United Nations when her Terra Kulture venture got equity funding in 2003 from Guaranty Trust Bank. It was led at the time by the late Tayo Aderinokun, who supported artists such as Yinka Shonibare, whose Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle is on show at the National Maritime Museum in London.
Cash injections from GTB helped fund the purchase and refurbishment of the centre. In 2017, a loan from Nigeria’s Bank of Industry financed a 400-seat theatre. She still regularly relies on Ecobank Transnational to fund stage productions.
“Support from banks makes life very easy for us,” said Ms Austen-Peters, one of the producers of Netflix’s thriller 93 Days , which tells the story of an Ebola outbreak in Nigeria. “From there we can pay the actors. Otherwise at times you can’t rely solely on ticketing.”
The steady stream of financial assistance helped transform a rundown building into a vibrant hot spot that has hosted former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and actors such as Forest Whitaker and Ben Stiller.
Ms Austen-Peters will be depending on even more support as she expands Terra Kulture to include an academy that will provide certified training and develop more local content.
The success of her business shows why Nigerian lenders such as Access Bank, also one of Ms Austen-Peters’ backers, are making a fresh all-out push to add women entrepreneurs as customers.
The economy is still dominated by men: Only a third of women have a bank account, according to Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access, a development organisation. They also are prevented from doing some jobs and are more likely than men to end up running roadside stalls rather than going to university.
“Women make most of the consumer purchases in the home,” said Ada Udechukwu, the head of women banking at Access Bank. “They are an untapped economy.”
Nigeria’s biggest bank has seen a two-fold surge in deposits from women over the past year since opening a gender-diversity unit, while the number of female customers has also doubled, […]
