Women are better borrowers, says CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria has urged more women to approach the
banks for its small and medium scale loans because they will repay
such grants better than their male counterparts.

The Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr 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.

Okorafor said, “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 loan incentives.