DIAMOND BANK RESTATES COMMITMENT TO GROWING MSMES

In pursuit of its agenda to empower Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSME) as the main drivers of the economy, Diamond Bank Plc recently hosted entrepreneurs in Port Harcourt to a capacity building seminar – the 17^th in the series since 2009 when the monthly seminars was introduced.  

The seminar, entitled “Effective Social Networking to Successfully Move your Business Forward”, is part of the monthly business seminars organised by the bank to empower MSME’s. The event was held at The Atrium, Stadium road, Port Harcourt.

Managing Director/CEO of Samuelson Consulting Limited, Tony Epelle, who was the key facilitator at the seminar, took the entrepreneurs through various avenues of maximising interactions to the benefit of their businesses. He spoke extensively on the intricacies of networking and how it can be leveraged on to help entrepreneurs deliver outstanding results.

Also speaking at the well-attended event, the bank’s co-ordinator, MSME Proposition, Chima Nnadozie said the Diamond BusinessXpress Enterprise Series serves to help entrepreneurs develop capacity to run successful businesses.

Mr. Nnadozie noted that, “Every month, we bring entrepreneurs together in seminars like this to help them develop skills in running their businesses. This is in addition to growth capital of over N3m that we provide for them. We continue to have entrepreneurs sign up for our BusinessXpress account as we provide end-to-end solutions for MSMEs. We are committed to developing MSMEs in Diamond bank as we believe they constitute the engine room of the economy.”

This brings to 17 the number of the BusinessXpress Enterprise seminars the bank has hosted nationwide in a programme that has received rave reviews from MSME operators.

A statement on the bank’s website states the Diamond BusinessXpress account is developed specifically to add value to businesses. The account aims to help customers grow their MSME business till it graduates to the upper level market. The account is available in three variants based on the monthly business turnover of the account holders. These are: Starter/Micro, for those with a turnover of N4m; Growing/Small, for those with a monthly turnover of N12m; and Established/Medium, for those who make an average of N40m monthly.

Diamond Bank has been a frontline advocate and supporter of micro, small and medium enterprises because of their role as the pivot for national development.  Only recently, 50 entrepreneurs benefited from the Building Enterprenuers Today (BET) programme, the Bank’s flagship CSR initiative in which they went through a year-long capacity building educational programme at the Center for Enterprise Development of the Pan African University. The top 5 participants benefited from a growth capital grant of N3m each.