NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, October 18, 2013

For Nigeria to realise its economic goals, a paradigm shift in the nation’s financial inclusion strategy may have become imperative.

This was the view of the Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Ms. Evelyn Oputu during at the microfinance conference organized by LAPO Microfinance Bank Limited in Lagos, yesterday.

According to the BoI boss, banks and other financial institutions need a new approach to serve Nigerian women entrepreneurs, whose inability to raise funds holds back growth that could have positively impacted on the economy.

Speaking on the theme, “Financial inclusion and female empowerment”, Oputu noted that critical issues in achieving gender equality in the society like financial inclusion, access to capital and integration into value chains and new markets must be addressed.

According to her, the efficient operation of increasingly knowledge-based economy was not only a function of adequate levels of available finance, a reasonably open trade regime for goods and services, but also dependent on the ability to tap into a society’s reservoir of talents and skills, especially among women.

Oputu emphasised that countries that invest in promoting the social and economic status of women tend to have lower poverty rates.