First Bank Receives $100 Million Credit Facility From CDC to Support Women and Small Business Owners

According to Bloomberg, the CDC Group, the United Kingdom’s development-finance arm, will provide a $100 million credit facility to First Bank of Nigeria Ltd. to help support women-owned businesses and small businesses in Africa’s largest economy.

The funding will “address the challenge of limited access to capital faced by the country’s under-banked and underserved groups,” according to an emailed statement from the firm on Monday. According to the statement, a minimum of $30 million will be allocated to women entrepreneurs in the form of credit lines.

The facility will improve credit access in Africa’s most populous country by utilizing First Bank’s 700 branches and 150,000 banking agents. According to the CDC, an estimated 59 million Nigerians, or roughly a quarter of the population, are unbanked.

While CDC has previously made similar facilities available through Nigerian banks, this is the largest and first to be aimed specifically at female entrepreneurs.

According to Nick O’Donohoe, chief executive officer of the CDC Group, female-led firms are frequently the drivers of small business ideas and services to their communities. According to him, the facility will help “unlock the potential for entrepreneurial success and economic growth across the country.”