LAPO Microfinance Bank Limited has unveiled ‘My Pikin and I’, savings account designed to provide support for women and children boost the bank’s deposit base.
Speaking during the product launch in Lagos, the outgoing Managing Director of the bank, Godwin Ehigiamusoe, said the bank loaned N153 billion to customers in 2019 and plans to increase it to N170 billion this year.
“As a financial intermediation institution, we want to lend more. We see over time, we need a cheaper deposit to enable us to lend at a lower interest rate. We have We did N153 billion last year, we should be able to do N170 billion in 2020,” he said.
Ehigiamusoe said the product was put together in the realisation of the cooperate objective of the organisation and the need to assist the savers to build up capital.
He explained that the service product is an opportunity for women to save towards the welfare of their children/dependents and provide all range of financial services to both women and children.
According to him, the account allows you to secure the child’s future until he/she attains adulthood.
He said the fact that women and children were neglected in the society gave the organisation the push to go into the business of helping to relieve them of the financial burden.
“A lot of things have made it difficult for people to inculcate savings culture and it has to be improved, I believe people have to plan their budget and determine what they really need over what they want, once they are able to do that, they are able to set some money aside. I think there should be the availability of an instrument like this that presents the opportunity for people to save.
“In remote communities, people don’t have the opportunity to save, they prefer to hide their money under their mattresses, but with more products like this, the level of our savings culture will improve. We want to go beyond supporting the women to providing for children also. It is a service product which was initially for the child, My Pikin, but now, it has been extended to the women, hence, My Pikin and I. The account can be opened in the name of the child.”