By Moses Nosike

A Benin-based Micro-Finance bank, Lift Micro-Finance, a subsidiary of Lift Above Poverty (LAPO)  has vowed to tackle  poverty and   give   hope  to many  especially women who are the bread winners of families, through its credit delivery, recovery strategies and customer relations.

According to the Managing Director of  LAPO, Mr. Ehigiamusoe “We  are fighting poverty in the land  by consistently providing credit facilities to small, and medium enterprises.
“We also help in reducing unemployment among youths by providing soft loans that can  help them establish themselves since government alone cannot provide all the jobs needed by thecitizens.”

He said that the bank in its pursuit to elevate more families in Nigeria has disbursed a total of N339,367.00 (Three hundred and thirty-nine million, three hundred and sixty seven thousand) naira before now. “It has also rolled out attractive customer-focused products in its three new credit centres with increased staff strength from 28 to 38.”
Mr. Ehigiamusoe  also said the micro-finance  bank renders financial advisory services, consumer loans/overdrafts, savings and investments among others.

“In the same vein, LAPO agricultural and rural development initiative also provides affordable credit and extension services to rural farmers  in Nigeria towards meeting their financial and technical needs.”
On the development initiative outreach  of   the  company, he said it has  expanded from 176 in 2007 to 1,239 in 2008, representing 95% while annual disbursement rose from N15 million in 2007 to N124 million in 2008 with portfolio risk remaining below 0.5%.

He added that LAPO development initiative carries out sensitization and training programme on poultry management  to boost the capacity of benefiting farmers.  “Though there are a lot of challenges here and there,  we make sure that credit facilities are available to  some extent”, he said.