The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has raised the Targeted Credit Facility, TCF, from N150 billion to N300 billion.
The TCF is a facility meant for households and small and medium enterprises affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the CBN, the expansion of the credit line is to enable the reach to more households and small businesses.
CBN’s Governor, Godwin Emefiele, in a ‘Response by the Monetary and Fiscal Authorities to COVID-19’ report, said the TCF funds were already being disbursed through the NIRSAL Microfinance Bank.
Emefiele said already N149.21 billion has been disbursed to 316,869 beneficiaries, adding that given the resounding success of this programme and its positive impact on output growth, the apex bank has decided to double the fund to N300 billion.
The loan disbursements were based on the activity, cash flow, and industry size of the beneficiaries. Each eligible small business can receive a maximum of N25 million while qualified households can access a maximum of N3 million each.
The CBN Governor said: “The increase is to accommodate many more beneficiaries and boost consumer expenditure which should positively impact output growth.
“Given the impact on COVID-19 on key economic variables earlier mentioned, the fiscal and monetary authorities took unprecedented measures to prevent any long-term damage to the growth prospects of our economy.”
He said there is a one-year extension of the moratorium on principal repayments for CBN intervention facilities and regulatory forbearance was granted to banks to restructure loans given to sectors that were severely affected by the pandemic.
He said the CBN has also strengthened the Loan to Deposit ratio policy, which has resulted in a significant rise in loans provided by financial institutions to banking customers.
