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  • Heritage Bank Boss, Sekibo Urges Govt, Stakeholders To Prioritise SMEs, Youth Entrepreneurship

    Heritage Bank Boss, Sekibo Urges Govt, Stakeholders To Prioritise SMEs, Youth Entrepreneurship

    The Managing Director/CEO of Heritage Bank Plc, Ifie Sekibo has urged stakeholders and governments at all levels to prioritize conscious inclusion of Small and Medium Enterprises and youth entrepreneurship in bridging the gap to attain sustainable solutions to economic recovery as it is the most impactful route to drive lasting and meaningful growth.

     

     Sekibo gave this submission on the sidelines of the 14th Annual Banking and Finance Conference of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) with a theme: “Economic Recovery, Inclusion & Transformation: The Role of Banking and Finance.”

     

    According to him, one of the key areas where government, financial institutions and other stakeholders can move this nation from poverty to prosperity is through conscious creation of viable environment for small businesses and young entrepreneurs to thrive because they are the backbone of local economies around the world – they happen to be the biggest employers, job creators and contributors of the national gross domestic products.

     

    “We cannot talk about moving from poverty to prosperity without taking SMEs very seriously in this country.

     

    “We must support the SMEs sector reform through providing infrastructure, providing loans to farmers and ensuring interest rate loans is single digit,” he affirmed.

     

    Sekibo, who was represented at the conference by the Regional Head Abuja-1, Daniel Oniko, stated that giving SMEs and young entrepreneurs leverage to contribute immensely to the development of their host community through engaging the youths and unemployed individuals will bring about and facilitate economic recovery.

     

    He emphasized that the role of SMEs in creating and sustaining national development in relation to job creation has been considered a key tool in modern-day poverty alleviation, economic emancipation, and total well-being.

     

    The MD, however disclosed that “One of Heritage Bank’s major cardinal point as a bank is supporting micro, small and medium scale businesses and our strong desire to see young men and women succeed in any area of their business.

     

    This will help the society and economy to grow, thereby moving the nation from poverty to prosperity, he added. He noted that Heritage Bank was taking the lead through various initiatives such as its youth entrepreneurship development programmes which were aimed at increasing the contributions of the MSME segment to the economy.”

     

    He further explained that the entrepreneur schemes of the bank in the support for business had always focused on dependable job-creating sectors such as the agricultural value chain: fish farming, poultry, snail farming, etc., cottage industry, mining and solid minerals, creative industry: tourism, arts and crafts, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

     

    Speaking earlier, the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said emerging challenges require that the banking and finance sector takes on more transformative projects such as housing and renewable energy.

     

    The VP acknowledged that the banking and finance sector has over the years played significant roles in the nation’s economic development.

     

    According to the Vice President, “it is time for the sector to take on some of the transformative big-ticket items that would fundamentally transform our economy. Such matters include consumer finance but housing finance.

     

    In his goodwill message, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele stated that the banking sector remained well positioned to support the recovery efforts of the monetary and fiscal authorities.

     

    “Clearly, Nigeria’s banks have become not only strong and resilient but have also carved a good niche in the world to consolidate on the growth and resilience of the banks in the last decades”, he added.

     

  • Market Formation Framework, Driver to Optimally Develop Solid Mineral Sector- Sekibo

    Market Formation Framework, Driver to Optimally Develop Solid Mineral Sector- Sekibo

    The Managing Director/CEO of Heritage Bank Plc, Ifie Sekibo has said that market formation framework is the key to optimally exploit Nigeria’s precious metal and solid minerals endowments.

     

    He disclosed this during a webinar organised by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development with the theme, “Financing the Solid Minerals Sector through the Capital Market and the Critical Role of Commodity Exchanges.” 

     

    In a press statement signed by Ozena Utulu, Ag. Group Head, Corporate Communications, Sekibo explained that a fully established market formation process that would lead to having a Corporation as an integrated solid mineral institution like NNPC which allows the collateralisation of assets those banks can rely on for alternative funding options.

     

     

    According to him, this will guarantee other creative ways of raising funds for financing commercial activities relating to solid minerals and viable projects along its value chain.

     

    Sekibo, who was represented by the Divisional Head, Strategy and Business Solutions, of the Bank, Olusegun Akanji, said for the sector to be viable, it requires lots of converged government interventions because for any development focused sector to kick-off around the world, it needs government intervention to lay the foundation for the private sector and funders to step-in and pool their resources. 

     

    “Once, we can collateralise these assets, whether they are under the ground or being determined, you use different instruments to bring liquidity into them. Then investors will follow up once we have established there is enough they can explore.” the MD stated.

     

    He further suggested that finance sector regulators need to expand its Prudential Guidelines to accommodate the instruments such that precious metal backed or solid minerals backed assets could qualify as part of the computation of liquidity ratios.

     

    “Once banks start injecting their resources, customers would certainly follow that trend. You can start arranging for sophisticated solutions like bonds, bullion backed assets and pension notes. Again, banks will have to be poised to hold the funding that comes from this sector; that way, they can open new transactional frontiers either locally or internationally. 

     

    “At the base of this, are the issues of pricing and integrity of the market. Once banks play in that sector and we have a government institution like the NNPC type to hold all these documentations, it would be very easy to establish price discovery on an ongoing basis. This will in turn attract international funders, hedge funds and retail investors. Today, we have retail bonds in the same way; we can have gold backed or any of the solid mineral assets where retail investors can put in the funds,” Sekibo explained.

     

    Meanwhile, it would be recalled that Heritage Bank Plc has said its involvement in the private sector collaboration with Dukia Gold & Precious Metals Refining Co. Limited is set to unlock the over N344 trillion market worth of gold investible instruments in the solid minerals sector.

     

    However, he reiterated that consistent packaged framework, which could only be held by an established government institution, as part of the layers of framework, would help to tackle major challenges in trying to support Dukia Gold’s clients.

     

    “With consistent packaged framework, it will be easier for Dukia Gold and help in less spending. If Dukia Gold should speak of their challenges, they will speak about tonnes of tonnes of documents they have to produce. But with a unified source of documentation, it makes the process easier and improves cost management. These are some of the challenges we have experienced in trying to support a few clients we worked with,” Sekibo stated.