IFC partners LAPO MfB to serve low income borrowers in Nigeria

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has disclosed its readiness to commit to a new investment into LAPO Microfinance Bank, a leading microfinance institution in Nigeria, to help it expand its services in small and medium environments.

 LAPO is active in serving poor and low-income borrowers, particularly rural women without access to other financing sources due to lack of collateral or ability to meet other requirements, as it currently serves more than 700,000 clients and aims to reach 5.0 million within five years.

IFC is providing an N800 million ($5 million equivalent) local currency loan, which is the Corporation's  first financing of a national microfinance institution in Nigeria.

Speaking on the development, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of LAPO, Mr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe said: “Through this partnership IFC is helping LAPO expand our capacity to reach a wider group of clients. Our relationship will help build greater financial inclusion among a rural low-income client base in Nigeria”. 

Solomon Adegbie-Quaynor, IFC Senior Country Manager, said, “IFC aims to increase access to finance for low-income people through commercially viable microfinance institutions. LAPO provides a platform to distribute other tailored services to the base-of-the pyramid such as micro- health insurance, and environment friendly energy products such as solar lanterns and cooking gas.”

LAPO has enjoyed robust growth averaging 40 percent annually since commercializing in 2005, and serves over 700,000 microenterprise borrowers, over 90% of whom are women, spread across 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states. Growth has enabled LAPO to lower interest rates by almost 20 percent, while becoming the first microfinance provider in Sub-Saharan Africa to use a nationally-representative poverty scorecard to select its clients and track their poverty levels.

IFC is a leading investor in microfinance in Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria, with a fast-growing, well-performing portfolio of equity, debt and advisory projects. IFC’s portfolio includes 24 microfinance clients across 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, which have reached over 1.5 million microenterprises and low-income households.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. It helps developing countries achieve sustainable growth by financing investment, mobilizing capital in international financial markets, and providing advisory services to businesses and governments.

In FY12, its investments reached an all-time high of more than $20 billion, leveraging the power of the private sector to create jobs, spark innovation, and tackle the world’s most pressing development challenges.