By Amaka Agwuegbo
The Managing Director of Meridian Microfinance Bank, Mr. Innocent Ezema, has said part of the bank’s social intermediation function is to provide insurance, educational and healthcare programmes for the ‘active poor’.

Ezema said the because microfinance banks (MFBs) are mono-product banks, they tend to focus only on their financial intermediation functions, thus neglecting their social intermediation functions.

“Though MFBs are mono-product banks, Meridian MFB decided to look deeper to seek other avenues to make money. Thus we have decided to focus not only on financial intermediation responsibilities but also on social intermediation like insurance, healthcare and educational programmes.

“This decision to focus on social intermediation is because there are other social aspects that have not been taken into consideration.

“We want to give the ‘active poor’ access not only to credit services but healthcare, insurance packages and quality education because they need these services to earn more money.”

Ezema said part of the social intermediation programme is the provision of quality education to students by assisting their parents pay their children’s school fees.
“We assist account holding parents with their children’s education by granting them facilities to offset the fees.
“So, if a parent doesn’t have enough money to pay his children’s fees, all that needs to be done is for the parent to have a certain percentage of the fees in his account and we would give him a loan to make up the fees.
“Then from subsequent deposits, we deduct an agreed amount. A lot of parents appreciate this package because it enables them to save and at the same time, sponsor their children to school.

“We have selected 27 schools in Oriade and Amuwo Odofin LCDAs for the pilot scheme and the feedbacks are very impressive. We also have 5,000 exercise books to give to schools and students that pay their school fees through our bank.”

The Managing Director of Meridian MFB also revealed that his bank is looking at ways of partnering with Oriade LCDA on how to better impact positively on the community.

“This is an important aspect of our social intermediation because within the LCDA, there are urban and semi-urban areas, with most of the semi-urban dwellers are fishermen who live across the river.

“We want to be able to come up with developmental programmes like helping them acquire cooling facilities to preserve their fishes and create market for their products by assisting them bring their products across the river.”

Ezema also said the confidence crisis rocking the sector has prompted them to target organizations that have an established number of staff to offer them tailor-made services to suit their needs.

According to him, “Microfinancing thrives more on group lending than individual lending and we want to cash in on that.”