Can Microfinancing Improve Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

Microfinance is the array of financial services, including loans, savings and insurance, available to poor entrepreneurs and small business owners who have no collateral and would not otherwise qualify for a standard bank loan. Most often, microloans are given to those living in still-developing countries who are working in a variety of different trades, including carpentry, fishing and transportation. However, the paper makes use primary data and questionnaire were distributed to fifty (50) staff of AB microfinance bank, Ikeja branch, Lagos state and fifty (50) selected small and medium scale enterprises in Ikeja metropolis, Lagos State, Nigeria and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was adopted as the estimation techniques. The paper set to examinethe impact of micro finance bank on small and medium enterprises in Nigeria and to also examine the impact of micro finance policy on employment opportunities in Nigeria. More so, the result shows that Microfinance bank has a significant effect on the growth of small enterprises in Nigeria and Microfinance policy has a significant effect on employment opportunities in Nigeria. Therefore, the paper concludes that the government should focus more on promoting small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria by giving more microfinance banks opportunity to operate freely and give loan to the SMEs in Nigeria. Finally, the paper recommends that small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) is seen as the way forward for Nigerian economy rather than relying on oil that has not transformed the economy, so the Nigerian government should embrace SMEs and give more support to the microfinance bank in other to give loan to the SMEs in Lagos State Nigeria.