The Central Bank of Nigeria has urged more women to approach the banks for small and medium scale loans because they will repay such grants better than their male counterparts.
Its Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said this during an event by the bank at the Lagos International Trade Fair in Lagos on Friday.
He also said that the CBN placed a high priority on women, and was increasing the number of females in its fold.
His words: “We have a special place for women and we have increased the number of women we have because we believe that women are more efficient, more reliable and more enterprising than men.
“It is easy to give more loans to women because they will pay back. They are not like those of us (men) who may not pay back.”
He explained further that if a woman had the naira note, the impact of the money would be greater than when it was given to a man.
While noting that the women were more enterprising, he said that they hardly come out to collect the single digit interest loans that the bank was giving to the small and medium scale enterprises, while those who come are not well organised and lacked the necessary collateral.
He also mentioned that many of the women did not have bank accounts where the loans could be paid into.
To address this challenge, he said that the CBN had been encouraging the women to organise themselves under effective cooperative units to be able to access the incentives.
