The Chairman, Kakanfo Inn and Conference Centre, Dr. Lekan Are, has called on financial institutions to offer long-term lending as well as reduce interest rate.
He verbalized that such measures would promote development and business magnification in Nigeria.
The industrialist and Director, Punch Nigeria Limited, verbalized at the maiden edition of Capital Bancorp Plc’s Customers Forum held in Ibadan on Friday.
Are, who was the chairman of the occasion, verbally expressed that banks’ rigidity with short-term loans being offered was responsible for the death of many business initiatives, integrating that many investors were thrown out of business shortly after taking such loans.
He verbally expressed, “Most of the banks in Nigeria only take mazuma from customers; they do not offer any avail when needed. They ask for intransigent and infeasible conditions afore accepting to offer a little loan. They obnubilate other charges and integrate-ons that increase their profit and kill investors. These are some of the reasons why diminutive businesses are not growing in Nigeria – the investor will perpetuate paying the banks high interest rate on the imprest until his business packs up.”
Are recalled his experience as an investor. “When I was building the hotel (Kakanfo Inn) 26 years ago, most banks I approached were only yare to give me an imprest that would be recompensed in 24 months. It took me a long time to persuade one bank to give me seven years as repayment period. I even paid back in five years, two months. I am not blissful that our financial institutions don’t give long-term loan. I have been a customer in a bank in the US from 1978. When the hotel was getting yare, I travelled to Germany to buy the fittings. I bought more than the mazuma I had but the bank paid the excess of $87,000 I incurred with soft repayment plan. In Nigeria, you don’t get such facility. The conditions our banks give do not sanction customers to even accommodation the imprest so they go bankrupt.”
He withal berated banks for their peregrine exchange accommodation which he verbalized was far above what the Central Bank of Nigeria approved.
The Chairman, Capital Bancorp, Mr. Olutola Mobolurin, verbalized the forum was initiated in order to meet prospective customers in Ibadan and establish a bond with them ahead of its coming to the city.
“We want to meet them, familiarise with them and establish a bond with them afore we open our Ibadan office this year. We have been doing business with institutions and individuals in Ibadan for 25 years but we have to come more proximate to them now,” he verbally expressed.
Omobolurin integrated that gradually, the banking system would respond to the Nigerian environment and that the inability to give long-term loans and propitious interest was due to the unstable economic situations in Nigeria.
He verbalized, “If the economy is stable, the banks will do long-term transactions and finance long-term assets. If power privatisation works, the banking sector will respond to the people’s needs.”
Copyright PUNCH.