By Tanko Mohammed
The Bank of Industry (BOI), which executes the Tradermoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni microcredit schemes has reported that beneficiaries across the country were repaying the loans to enable migrate to higher credit.
The scheme is under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP).
The bank said that its Command Centre has been opened to the public to verify the authenticity of its records and database of beneficiaries of the GEEP schemes.
The BOI also noted that there is no truth in some media reports that there was no record of beneficiaries of the TraderMoni scheme.
According to the Bank of Industry in a statement released on Friday, “The claim in the publication that “those that disbursed the money do not have records of beneficiaries like phone numbers and addresses, thus, making it difficult to track them for repayment” is false.
The quoted party like all other NSIP focal persons in all states of the federation, after necessary approvals, have been proactively furnished with all information regarding GEEP beneficiaries, as a matter of practice. This includes beneficiary names, phone numbers, and business location.
“We would like to state that the fully digitized loan records and biodata of all 2,418,936 GEEP beneficiaries are electronically stored in a central database. The data can be viewed at the GEEP Command Centre of the Bank of Industry which is open to the public. We will welcome the reporter of the erroneous publication to do so.”
It stated that the Bank “relies heavily on technology to deliver its three loan products; namely TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni. The loan cycle for every GEEP applicant involves the following processes”
“GEEP agents nationwide are equipped with a proprietary mobile application that enables the full registration and capture of up to 43 unique data points of every single applicant e.g. biodata, contact information, information on the market, nature of trade, GPS coordinate of the trade point, picture of the beneficiary and beneficiary’s trade, association member and all other data that enables identification and credit assessment.
“Data on every captured beneficiary is delivered to the Bank of Industry in real time to enable verification, appraisals and credit assessment. All submitted beneficiary data go through several points of verification to ensure validity of the registration process. It is only when this data is verified that applicants are able to receive loans.
Consequently, every loan given out on the programme can be traced to a beneficiary involved in a known trade, at a known location, within a known market association, cooperative or farming cluster. Due to data privacy restrictions, we are unable to publish personally identifiable customer information of the Bank of Industry.”
The BOI also explained the repayment options for GEEP Beneficiaries and automatic qualification for higher loans after repayment; while adding that several beneficiaries have successfully repaid their loans and gone on to access higher TraderMoni and MarketMoni loans since the inception of the programme.
“GEEP makes it easy for beneficiaries to repay the loans. The loan repayments are broken down into small manageable amounts payable weekly. In addition, GEEP beneficiaries are able to repay their loans through multiple channels. They can walk into any bank in the country and make repayments the same way they make utility bill payments.
“GEEP also developed repayment scratch-cards for beneficiaries much farther away from banks. Beneficiaries purchase the cards in their local communities and load them as they would a telco recharge card.
When beneficiaries pay back the loan according to the repayment schedule, they automatically qualify for a higher loan. It is imperative we set the record straight concerning the operations of GEEP, so as to guard against misleading the general public.”
