The Development Bank of Nigeria Plc (DBN), said it has disbursed a total sum of N482 billion to Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country since inception.

The bank disclosed that 65 per cent of the beneficiaries were women and youth-owned businesses.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive of the bank, Mr. Tony Okpanachi, disclosed this at its 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Abuja.

He informed stakeholders that the fundamentals of the bank’s financials remained robust adding that total gross earnings closed at N38.18 billion, while Profit Before Tax (PBT) stood at N22.76 billion representing, an increase of 25 per cent over the previous year.

The bank’s total assets also increased by 1.4 per cent from N492.3 billion in 2020 to N499.2 billion in 2021.

Okpanachi, further attributed the bank’s financial performance to “its robust corporate governance framework, business model as well as its top-notch enterprise risk management coupled with highly committed board of directors, management and staff. This is something that I am very proud of.”

He said, “We continued to focus and deliver on our mandate of providing access to finance through our PFIs to Nigeria’s most critical, but underserved Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises building their capacity and that of the PFIs in addition to the provision of partial credit guarantee to encourage lending to this very important sub-sector of the economy.”

“Our cumulative disbursement of N482Billion especially to women-owned or managed businesses; is something that we are particularly delighted about from the perspective of women empowerment and poverty alleviation.”

A Partner with KPMG Professional Services, Kabir Okunlola, who is the external auditors of the bank said that the summary of the financial statement complied with the relevant statutory requirements.