Business

Hope Rises As FCMB Support 15,000 Women With SME’s

Published

5 years ago

January 25, 2021

Joel Ajayi

Hope rises for 15,000 Small and Medium Enterprises( SMEs) as first City Monument Bank has continued its aggressive drive and support for the economy sector in the country.

It will be recalled that,bank, which was recently voted as the Best SME Bank in Africa, thereby consolidating its position as the dominant financial institution in the segment, has made more funds available to women entrepreneurs through her “SheVenture” initiative.

The SheVentures initiative offers enhanced support to women-owned SMEs and starts-ups through access to finance, training and mentoring with the unique benefit of zero-interest-rate for an initial period of three months.

Over 15,000 women-owned SMEs have so far benefitted from this, in terms of funding and training, in the last 18 months.

In recognition of her great contributions to the growth of the small and medium enterprise sector, FCMB was recently voted as the Best SME Bank in Africa at the Asian Banker Middle East and Africa Regional Awards in November 2020.

It was another confirmation of the bank’s unequalled commitment and outstanding performance in offering exceptional services, including funding, capacity building and other value-added supports, to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.

Share on Facebook

Business

TAJBank Emerges Nigeria’s Biggest Non-Interest Bank

Published

1 week ago

October 23, 2025

The Gleamer

Cyril Ogar

After five years of operations in Nigeria’s rapidly evolving non-interest banking (NIB) space, TAJBank Limited has become the biggest player in the NIB subsector based on its total assets and gross earnings values.

Disclosing this during his paper presentation on the key performance indices in the non-interest banking space over the past few years at a seminar organized by Leaders Corporate Services with the theme “Roles of Non-Interest Banks In SMEs’ Financing” for SME entrepreneurs yesterday in Abuja, an investment expert, Mr. Olabode Akeredolu-Ale, maintained that based on the non-interest banks’ approved financial statements for the half year 2025, TAJBank currently remained the biggest in terms of its total assets.

The expert, a chartered stockbroker, specifically confirmed that his recent investment researches on the NIBs and their financial performances showed that TAJBank, with its total assets rising to N1.017 trillion in half year 2025 up from N953.098 billion as of December 2024, which is about N53 billion higher than the nearest NIB’s assets, now ranked top in the banking subsector.

According to him, TAJBank’s gross earnings for H1 2025 also surged to N53.752 billion from N32.86 billion as of December 2024, representing a 64% growth, and higher than the nearest NIB’s gross earnings in the period under review.

This is even as he disclosed that on the NIBs’ earnings per share during the half year, TAJBank reported N61.36 kobo earnings per share, about 92% higher than the earnings per share of the next NIB during the period.

Akeredolu-Ale, who is also a chartered accountant, clarified: “The figures I am reeling out here on the NIBs are sourced from the banking and capital market regulatory institutions’ platforms, which anyone can access to verify.

“I am part of this event because of my research interest in non-interest banking and how the players in the subsector in Nigeria can help to leverage their competencies in innovation and ethical banking to support our MSMEs.

“Today, the MSMEs cannot access DMBs’ loans due to high lending rates and other inclement macroeconomic factors. This is where I think the NIBs have become very crucial to Nigeria’s economic growth.

“Overall, my findings on the NIBs indicated that they are all trying their best with non-interest loans to support entrepreneurs, particularly the MSMEs owners. I have advised those of them at this seminar to explore the cost-friendly financing options of the NIBs to grow their businesses by opening accounts with the NIBs”, the expert added.

Another speaker at the event, Benjamin Chukwudi, also commended the NIBs for their “catalytic roles in helping SMEs to access interest-free loans and providing them the needed financial management advisory, which have been helping them in sustaining their operations in the face of rising cost of doing business in the country.”

Share on Facebook