In their bid to help alleviate and stimulate economic activities, Access Bank Nigeria will today begin the disbursement of N50 Billion Interest free loan, to be distributed as grants to support communities, the youths, and MSME businesses.
The Access Bank Interest-Free Loan is also targeted to assist businesses whose source of income was destroyed by hoodlums who hijacked the EndSARS protest against police brutality to wreak havoc on private businesses.
Speaking in a telephone interview with Thisday Newspaper, Deputy Group Managing Director, Access Bank, Mr. Roosevelt Ogbonna, said: “From tomorrow (Monday), we would start collecting application from customers. There is an interest-free loan as well as a grant also embedded in that.
According to him, the idea is to support working capital as well as access finance. “It has a maximum tenor of 24 months for the access finance and 12 months for the working capital. The structure is flexible and it is to align with the customers’ cash flow. The term facility would have a moratorium period of six months and then we would structure the repayment following the customers’ own cash flow cycle. Both are interest-free.
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“For the grant, we have broken it into two. Firstly is that for youth empowerment and community development. The youth empowerment is in two parts. We have a segment of the grant that is focused on supporting the tech industry and we have another that is focused on skill development, which is for those that are for tailors, barbers, mechanics, criteria.
“The idea is that our branches are all over the country, so whatever skill you have, go to any of our branches and you will get whatever support you require.”
The loan would be targeted at customers of the financial institution across its MSME business, commercial banking customers as well as corporate banking customers.
