The Bank of Industry (BoI) has reacted to a publication questioning the existence of records of beneficiaries of the TraderMoni scheme. 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 bank, in a statement said, “All National Social Investment Programme (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 Center of the Bank of Industry which is open to the public.
The programme 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:
Extensive KYC and data validation via mobile forms
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.
Widespread repayment options for GEEP Beneficiaries and automatic qualification for higher loans after repayment.
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.
Since the inception of the program, several beneficiaries have successfully repaid their loans and gone on to access higher TraderMoni and MarketMoni loans.
It is imperative we set the record straight concerning the operations of GEEP, so as to guard against misleading the general public.”