By Providence Obuh

Accion Microfinance Bank (AMfB), weekend, said that the economic downturn opens up opportunities to invest further in the future of Nigeria. Chairman, AMfB, Mr. Patrick Akinwuntan, said this at the bank’s 10th  Annual General Meeting for the financial year ended December 31, 2015, stating, “We see the challenges, we face it but we are quite reassured  that it is indeed an opportunity for us to demonstrate value to our customers and to invest further in the future of Nigeria.

“The macro economy have been challenging but that reinforces the opportunity for institution like ours to provide support for our micro entrepreneurs across Nigeria. Whilst those macro contractions come up, it challenges the country to realise its internal potential, with over 180 million people, we believe strongly that we have the human capital in Nigeria to take us through the storm. What is required is the operating environment and the support and active participation of players like our bank to support Nigerians.”

Akinwuntan added that despite the economic challenges, the bank deepened its market in Lagos by opening about seven branches, having its first foray outside Lagos with the commencement of Mile 1, in Port Harcourt. He said, “2015 started on a challenging note for the Nigerian economy and was characterised by several highs and lows. By end of 2015 the economy was experiencing a slow-down. Micro entrepreneurs were not left out of the challenges witnessed in the environment as inflation rose, with the cost of electricity, transportation and other essential commodities rising as well.”

In spite of this, he said that the banks key performance indicators remained positive as active borrowers grew by 27.9 percent from 34, 243 in 2014 to 43,788 in the year under review. To further enhance operational efficiency, he said that the bank intend to commence its digital field application project in 2016 so as to improve loan process and guaranty easy access to customers, thereby saving time and cost.

To this end he said, “innovation and the use of technology which has helped us operate at more efficient levels will be leveraged on in 2016 to enable us continue to serve our customers more efficiently. The first sets of our ATMs were commissioned in 2015 and we envision that by the end of 2016, we should have over 50 ATM machines functioning in every state that we have a presence.”

Managing Director, AMfB, Ms. Bunmi Lawson, said that the banking industry like other sectors of the economy was not immune from hash economic realities with microfinance sub sector being worst hit. She pointed out that this led to a significant decline in income margins of many banks and MFIs, adding that despite the challenges, the bank’s loan disbursement which stood at N10.33 billion in 2014 grew by 33 percent to N13.77 billion in the year under focus.

According to Lawson, “the bank has deployed the Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) to enhance better data warehousing and management, pilot run of digital field application initiative to create efficiency in our data capturing in the loan process and central credit process centre with a centralised processing loans.”