BaoBab Microfinance Bank has offered over N40 billion loans to its customers to support their businesses, its Chief Executive Officer, Olanrewaju Kazeem, has said.
Speaking during the bank’s yearly Customers’ Forum in Lagos, he said: “We have supported our customers with over N40 billion between last year and now.”
He said the forum was organised in each of the regions in the country to understand customers’ businesses and needs better. “It is a place where we are able to interact with our customers with a view to getting feedbacks from them and also be able to tell them the developments in the bank, and then our aspirations and what we intend to do,” he said.
The chief executive officer said the bank used the forum to give customers feedbacks on previous meetings so that they could know how it had addressed the issues that they raised before.
“It is an interaction between the management, our customers and staff,” he said.
One of the changes experienced by the MfB, he said, was in digitisation because it had introduced the Baobab app to provide opportunity for online transactions.
According to him, in the last one year, it had created six more branches and was partnering with some agency networks across the country, apart from using its digital platforms.
Speaking on the recapitalisation that was introduced into the sector by the banking regulator, he said, “Between last year and now, we are fully recapitalised and nobody needs to worry about regulatory intervention.’’
“We have introduced different products to support our customers to save, to invest and we give them attractive rates.”
Kazeem said Baobabs Microfinance Bank, which is a major stakeholder in financial inclusion, has also launched its digital Baobab app, which allows customers to make transfers, check their account balances, loan status, among others.
“We have created a number of digital platforms where customers can get the same service that they would get if they came across the counter in any of our branches.
