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First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has reached an agreement with African Development Bank (AfDB) on a $50 million credit line from the multilateral African development finance institution. In a statement FCMB sent to Financial Nigeria today, the bank said the facility will be disbursed to benefit businesses that empower women, and local enterprises involved in agribusiness, manufacturing, healthcare, and renewable energy.

The long-term financing, which would be disbursed by the end of the year, will narrow the lending gap to underserved segments and complement the bank's lending and programme in the Nigerian market, FCMB said in the statement.

Yemisi Edun, Managing Director, FCMB, expressed appreciation for the confidence AfDB reposed in the bank, adding that the credit line would help it increase lending to high impact sectors of the Nigerian economy, helping it to build back better, post-COVID.  

"We are delighted that a minimum of 30 per cent of the fund will go specifically to women empowered businesses, which would, in turn, contribute to stimulating gender equality and empowerment,” said Mrs. Edun. She added that the financial access to women aligns with FCMB's transformative agenda of boosting household economic resilience by improving women's access to credit and work opportunities.

FCMB said that in addition to the $50 million facility, the AfDB will provide a technical assistance grant of $200,000 to the bank through AfDB’s Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA). The Women Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative, an international partnership supporting women entrepreneurs in developing countries, supports AFAWA. The grant will support training, monitoring and reporting by FCMB.  

In a statement, AfDB's Director of Financial Sector Development, Stefan Nalletamby, said, "We are pleased to support FCMB's strategy to become a dominant player in addressing the funding needs of women-empowered and local enterprises. This project will extend valuable resources to critical but underserved segments during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with its adverse macroeconomic impact."

AfDB added that the facility also advances its ten-year strategy and is consistent with three of its high-five strategic priorities, which are “industrialise Africa”, “Feed Africa”, and “improve the quality of life for the people of Africa.” The strategic priorities align with AfDB’s Nigeria Country Strategy Paper 2020-2024, said the multilateral lender.

The AfDB credit line follows a $10 million facility FCMB recently secured from Oikocredit, a global social impact investor and co-operative institution based in The Netherlands, to upscale its financial support to SMEs and the agribusiness sectors in Nigeria.

FCMB is a member of FCMB Group Plc, one of Nigeria's leading and most diversified financial holding companies with subsidiaries that are market leaders in their respective segments. The bank has a strong base in various sectors of the nation's economy and has been offering solutions to its customers across segments for decades. FCMB has successfully transformed into a retail banking and wealth management-led group. The group said it will continue to distinguish itself through innovation and the delivery of exceptional services.