Petra MFB hopeful of attaining CBN’s N200m recapitalisation benchmark

Mrs. Muotoh Joyce Akpome. She is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Petra Microfinance Bank Plc.

 By Oluwatosin Areo

Following the recent order by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), mandating all Micro Finance Banks (MFB) to raise their capital base to a minimum of N200 million, Petra MFB has assured its customers that it was already working towards surpassing the minimum recapitalisation. The bank made the disclosure at its 10th anniversary and yearly general meeting which held in Lagos.
Stakeholders of the bank pledged to strengthen the bank’s operational capacity, grow the scale of loanable funds, and grow her capital base to meet its increasing customers’ demand.

Chairman, Board of Directors of the bank, Victor Dike, said: “It is instructive to inform shareholders that your bank is ahead in the process of complying with the new minimum capital regime announced by the CBN and will strive to continue to move ahead of the market in other things as well. In this regard, on behalf of the board and management, I request you all to kindly invest in shares of the bank.
Existing shareholders are enjoined to increase their investment in the bank.”
According to the Chairman, the journey of Petra MFB started in 2008, an initiative of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) to fulfil the burning desire to attend to specific needs of the active poor and small businesses in both the Catholic community and the larger society.
“Petra Micro finance Bank was established to help the active poor, improve the standard of living of families and assist in bridging the gap between the rich and the poor through access to finance to the ‘enterprising poor’ who are Catholics and other Nigerians who are actively engaged in genuine economic activities but with low capital base and limited access to finance,” Dike said.
The bank’s chairman noted that so far the institution was making steady progress as it aimed to become the National Bank of the Catholic Church in Nigeria and also a leading micro-finance bank in the country.

He said Petra has begun the process of growing the capital base of the bank in line with its dream of a bigger bank, adding that earlier in the year, the bank’s board engaged the services of an issuing house, Meristem Securities Limited, to support the process of raising additional capital of up to a billion naira, in phase, as additional to its current paid-up capital of N134 million.
“We are currently working on the compliance requirements that are needed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the approval of the share issue. At the time we started the process of raising capital, we were not aware, we were working towards a mandatory future,” Dike said.
The Managing Director of the bank, Mrs. Joyce Muotoh Akpome, noted that the social environment including security challenges remained a significant constraint to economic activities as well as challenges of irregular power supply and the vestiges of the recessionary period.
She however said Petra MFB was significantly resilient despite these challenges, adding that the bank strengthened its risk management framework, which resulted in improvement in the bank’s risk asset portfolio.
She pointed out that the bank’s operational performance of 2017 provided indication of a promising and sustaining future.