UBA, Agence Française De Development To Finance SMEs Across Africa

UBA House, Lagos, Nigeria

March 16, 2018//-The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, a pan-African banking group and Agence Française de Development (AFD), France’s public and solidarity-based development bank, on March 14, 2018 entered into a Framework Agreement to utilise the EURIZ and ARIZ schemes offered by AFD to facilitate the financing of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups across the 20 countries where UBA operates in Africa.

The new partnership, an off-shoot of the strategic relationship both institutions have had over the years, will enhance UBA’s capacity to finance SMEs in Nigeria and across the other 19 African countries where the bank currently operates, whilst ensuring AFD uses the financial structure availed by UBA to reach out to many SMEs across Africa.

The AFD’s EURIZ project helps the financially underserved Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises to receive loans for business development and sustainable jobs. AFD designed ARIZ risk-sharing facility as one of the financial tools to give SMEs easier access to financing from financial institutions. In the same vein, ARIZ helps financial institutions to deal with their SME risk and thereby help them develop their loan activity for micro-enterprises, SMEs and microfinance institutions (MFIs).

“Our partnership with Agence Française de Development(AFD) is novel as the scheme being introduced will enable us reach the various markets in our presence countries and would empower the SMEs across Africa through the provision of financial access, critical to their survival,” Kennedy Uzoka, Group Managing Director/CEO, UBA Plc, said.

“With this partnership, we will be able to derive value from a world-class financial institution which we believe is critical in growing wealth on the continent in the long-term,” Uzoka further stated.

Independent.ng 
 

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