E-Business
Bridging the ‘Access to Loan Gap’ for Nigerian SMEs
By Adeniyi Ogunfowoke,
One of the biggest challenges that many Small and Medium Scale Enterprises encounter in emerging economies like Nigeria is access to funding and capital. Majority of them either bootstrap or rely heavily on friends and family members for funding. For the latter, it usually leads to disagreement or dispute, especially when parties involved are not on the same page, and this might eventually lead to the liquidation of the business.
Meanwhile, for SMEs that approach banks for the so-called ‘soft loan’, they may not be able to meet the demands and the many paper works required to successfully secure the loan. Banks generally charge between 5-9 per cent interest rate (and more), for 1-5 years short-to-long term business loans. In Nigeria, you can obtain bank loans as small as N50, 000 and as big as N100 million depending on the scope of your business.
If you eventually get the loan, it may arrive too late and you might need collateral. Interestingly, if you survive the aforementioned, you should be ready for the neck-deep monitoring of your bank to ensure that you deploy the loan judiciously.
Despite this, the government and the private sector are making painstaking efforts to support SMEs. The present government’s TraderMoni through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) is helping a lot of small businesses in the country by providing them with as little as N10, 000.
Jumia, Nigeria’s No 1 shopping destination is also at the forefront of supporting SMEs. through the Jumia Lending initiative that gives businesses the opportunity to grow and expand by granting them fast and quick working capital. Some of the advantages of Jumia Lending are easy access to working capital, quick registration process, flexible repayment plan within 1-6 months, low-interest rate, no collateral, no hidden or extra charges and free training and support services to help achieve your business goals.
An important caveat to note to qualify for the loan are (1) You must have been selling on Jumia for at least 6 months, (2) Your 6-months average sales revenue on Jumia must be greater than 100,000.00 and (3) 6-months average items sold on Jumia must be greater than 25 items.
What makes Jumia lending and other digital credit companies quite attractive and the cynosure of SMEs is their flexibility. The paper works are not as taxing as that of the banks and you can get a significant amount between 24 and 48 hours. No bank in Nigeria will grant you a loan within this stipulated period without carrying out exhaustive due diligence.
In fact, some banks have taken a cue from the online quick service loan companies as they now offer non-collateral loans. But, not as quick as the digital credit companies. The indisputable truth is that the new wave of digital credit is good for SMEs.
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has approved N242.8m for the procurement of a Microsoft 365 licence for its Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS) as part of efforts to digitise the service’s operations.
Mr Michael Ango, acting executive chairman of FCT-IRS, disclosed this after the FCT Executive Committee meeting chaired by Mr Nyesom Wike, the minister of FCTA, in Abuja on Wednesday.
Ango said that the FCTA was making significant investments in technology to enhance revenue generation and collection.
“So, this is also one of those investments in technology that the FCT is undertaking.
“The licence, if procured, will enhance our ability to move most of our manual processes into automated processes.
“It will enhance our ability to communicate within our offices,” he said.
The executive chairman added that the move would also reduce the use of paper and ensure better record-keeping through the storage of information and documents in the cloud.
According to him, “The licence will essentially enhance our operations and assist us in generating revenue for the development of the FCT under Wike’s leadership.”
Rack Centre, West Africa’s Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data centre, has welcomed Olla Cloud Service, a new private cloud service by Olla Systems Limited, a leading provider of innovative technology solutions, to its facility.
Hosting at Rack Centre, Olla Cloud Service runs on a state-of-the-art, cloud-enabled infrastructure for enterprise applications across diverse platforms, including mission critical application, web applications as well as containerised applications using Kubernetes.
Lars Johannisson, CEO, Rack Centre, welcoming Olla Systems, noted that the partnership with Olla Systems Limited would reflect the company’s commitment to providing African businesses with high- quality cloud computing services.
He noted that Olla Systems would enjoy Rack Centre’s 13.5MW data centre campus facility, designed to meet the highest international standards and offering scalable solutions to Hyperscalers, Enterprises, and Cloud service providers.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, the facility is equipped with energy-efficient systems, advanced cooling technologies to mitigate environmental impact and an optimally-designed feature to handle high-density workloads with precision.
According to Johannisson, “With Olla Cloud Service hosting at Rack Centre, clients will experience fast performance and low latency, enabling businesses in Africa to access world-class cloud computing services within a secure and compliant local infrastructure.”
Also speaking, Olusola Adenuga, chief executive officer, Olla Systems Limited, expressed enthusiasm about hosting at Rack Centre, noting that Olla Cloud remains a groundbreaking private cloud solution for businesses.
While highlighting the benefits of the partnership between Rack Centre and Olla Systems, Adenuga disclosed that “subscribing to Olla Cloud Service is cost-effective to customers because of its local currency payment advantage.”
She also noted that the partnership between the duo, provides businesses the opportunity to meet regulatory requirements of data residency, while enjoying world-class infrastructure as a service (IaaS) locally.
“Other benefits of hosting with Olla Cloud include: 24/7 support, unparalleled performance, scalability and agility.” she added.
A user’s messaging app account might be of interest not only to jealous spouses and nosy coworkers, but also to cybercriminals.
Stolen WhatsApp accounts are used for various types of criminal activity, ranging from spam distribution to sophisticated scam schemes.
Cybercriminals constantly look for WhatsApp accounts and use various methods to gain access to them.
There are two ways cybercriminals can gain control of a WhatsApp account: they can add another device to an existing account using the “Linked devices” feature, or they can re-register the account on their own device as if the user had bought a new phone.
“In the first case, the user continues to use WhatsApp as usual, but the criminals also have access to all recent conversations. In the second case, the user loses access to their personal account.
“When trying to log in, WhatsApp notifies him that the account is already in use on another device, and the attackers can then control the account but not the past conversations.
“Messengers are a private space, as they often contain personal information about our lives and relationships with family and friends. They can also contain information about work and, in some cases, confidential information.
“If you notice any unusual activity, such as receiving replies to messages that you didn’t send, or if your friends complain about strange messages coming from your account, it’s important to take steps to protect your privacy immediately,” comments Seifallah Jedidi, Head of Consumer Channel, META, at Kaspersky.
While you can check instruction on what to do in case a WhatsApp account was already compromised, here are the key steps on how to avoid a WhatsApp account to be hacked:
- Enable two-step verification in WhatsApp and memorise your PIN — it’s not a one-time code. To do this, go to Settings → Account → Two-step verification.
- Never, ever share your PIN or one-time registration codes with anyone. Only scammers ask for these details.
- WhatsApp recently introduced support for passkeys. If you enable this option (Settings → Account → Passkeys), logging in to your account will require biometric authentication, and instead of PIN codes, your smartphone will store a long cryptographic key. This is a very secure option, but it may not be convenient if you frequently change devices and switch between Android and iOS.
- Set up a backup email address for account recovery: Settings → Account → Email address.
- If you’ve already added an email address, log in to your email account and change your password to a strong, unique one. To store it securely, use a password manager, such as Kaspersky Password Manager.
- Enable two-factor authentication for your email account.
- Make sure you haven’t fallen victim to a SIM swap scam. Contact your mobile carrier — preferably in person — and verify that no duplicate SIM cards have recently been issued for your number. Also, make sure there’s no unauthorised call-forwarding set up on your number. Cancel any suspicious changes and ask the staff about additional security measures for your SIM card. These may include prohibiting SIM-related actions without your being present, an extra password required for authentication, or other protections. Available security measures vary significantly by country and mobile carrier.
Any security measures in WhatsApp will be of little use if your smartphone or computer is infected with malware. Therefore, be sure to install comprehensive protection like Kaspersky Premium on all your devices.
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