George Oko-Oboh, Executive Director of Heritage Bank Plc
Adequate agricultural financing is critical in defining Nigeria’s trade competitiveness, which guarantees sustainable agricultural systems, generates foreign exchange, Heritage Bank Plc has affirmed.
George Oko-Oboh, Executive Director of Heritage Bank Plc, made this affirmation during the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria’s (CIBN)15th Annual Banking and Finance Conference, tagged: “Repositioning the Financial Services Industry for an Evolving Global Context” in Abuja.
He further disclosed that it was a critical aspect that equips the financial sector to respond to changing market requirements and addresses critical sector needs for global competitiveness.
Heritage Bank, Oko-Oboh Said, had been in the forefront of financing Agric value chains that have upped its competitiveness in the global market and helping to boost local production, conserve scarce foreign exchange and enhance food security, and ultimately resulted in the creation of hundreds of new jobs.
The executive director said the bank’s involvement in the sector dated back to many years ago and it had always been in the forefront of ensuring overall growth and development of commodities products in Nigeria. For these feats, Heritage Bank disbursed the CBN’s N41billion intervention in wheat production in Nigeria for commodity associations and anchor companies.
Said he: “We have continued to create market linkages between small holder farmers and Anchors/Processors, create an ecosystem that drives value chain financing, improve access to credit by the small holder farmers by developing credit history through the scheme and many more.
“As a Bank, we partnered CBN and other stakeholders such as wheat farmers association of Nigeria, wheat farmers, processors and marketers’ association of Nigeria, Lake Chad Research Institute and other development partners, flour mills of Nigeria and several seed companies and others to support over 100,000 farmers in wheat production.
“Also, Heritage Bank further factored consideration of value addition of financial services and products flowing to and/or through value chain participants to address and alleviate constraints to growth that have distorted product financing, receivables financing, physical-asset collateralization, risk mitigation products and financial enhancements”.
Farouk Gumel, Chairman, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, also said Nigerian banks must invest in modernising agriculture, helping it to be more resilient, more dynamic and better able to adapt for the banking sector to favourably compete in the evolving global context.
Noted Gumel: “Modernisation means much more than technology alone. It is also about farming techniques.
“To reposition the industry for a ‘Glocal context’, we need also to look more inwards; repositioning is not an option. It is a necessity. Nigerian has begun an agricultural renaissance over the past seven years. To be truly Glocal, we must commit the same resources and investments to rural-local customers as we have done to urban global clients”.
He agreed that the local players must keep an eye on what global happenings to stay in tune with international best practices, while asking that local/rural farmers should never be forgotten.
Dr. Ken Opara, President/chairman of council for CIBN, said the financial services industry needed to adapt to much faster pace of change in advancement in technology and innovation, adding that services, products, and technologies that were new and useful in the past would not necessarily be so soon.
Opara said advancement in technology and innovation is bringing about another wave of revolution that will change the landscape of the financial services sector more than ever.
