CBN Boosts Business Opportunities With Collateral Registry

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said Monday that it is creating more business opportunities in the country through the National Collateral Registry (NCR).

The apex Bank made the disclosure in a statement signed by its Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, in Abuja.

Okorafor said the NCR would move to the next phase of its mandate of easing business practices in Nigeria.

He said the development follows the recent World Bank report, indicating Nigeria’s meteoric rise in the “Ease of Doing Business Index”.

According to the index released last week, Nigeria moved up 24 places to 145th out of 190 countries.

Since its inception in 2016, the NCR has acted as a catalyst to credit improvement by significantly improving the credit culture in the Nigerian banking system. The NCR equally made it possible for MSMEs to leverage significant portion of their moveable assets as collateral for loans from the financial institutions to grow their businesses.

Mr. Okorafor assured that the Bank would do all within its mandate to strengthen the NCR in order to improve Nigeria’s current ranking of 6th on the “Getting Access to Credit” index.

On the role of the bank in ensuring a robust financial sector, he said the reduction of information asymmetry had assisted lenders in making sound decisions on credit solutions and ultimately improved access to credit by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

The activities of the NCR have proved effective in complementing the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) initiative of the Bank, which has been embraced by many more states of the Federation as a tool for job creation and food sufficiency.