African Guarantee Fund (AGF) has entered an agreement with Diamond Bank to support the lender’s microcredit to small businesses in the region
The terms of the new deal outline that AGF will be insuring 50 per cent of the funds, Diamond Bank affiliates in Togo, Benin, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria will work in partnership with AGF to increase lending to MSMEs to unlock the potentials within them in the region, AGF said.
“In Africa, majority of the economic growth is trade driven. Once trade is backed out, we have little or nothing. What we are doing in the AGF is to partner with like-minded institutions to provide adequate support for MSMEs to function actively in the sector,” stated the chief executive officer, African Guarantee Fund, Felix Bikpo.
“We are glad to partner with Diamond Bank as we have found their MSME support strategy to be the right one,” Bikpo added.
The African Guarantee Fund, which was launched in 2012, is a joint venture between the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Danish and Spanish governments.