The managing-director of the Bank of Agriculture (BoA),Ayodeji Sotinrin said the bank is repositioning its operations around digital lending, farmer aggregation, mechanisation and value-chain financing as part of strategy to transform the institution into a commercially viable development bank capable of reaching millions of Nigerian farmers.
Sotinrin said the bank was moving away from the model of operating like a government department to a technology-driven financial institution focused on sustainable agricultural finance and measurable impact.
While speaking to journalists in Abuja on Thursday, the MD said the transformation was anchored on the bank’s “three Rs” — restructuring, recapitalisation and repositioning with technology at the centre of its new operating model.
According to him, the bank has since deployed core banking, internet and mobile banking platforms, upgraded its payment infrastructure and introduced digital cards capable of storing customers’ identification information.
Sotinrin said the bank had also shifted from lending directly to millions of individual smallholder farmers towards financing through farmer aggregation companies, which would reduce transaction and recovery costs while improving monitoring and accountability.
“This approach is being deployed under programmes including the Renewed Hope Smallholder Support and Value Chain Programme, backed by a N250 billion allocation from the federal government”, he said.
