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Bank of Industry’s 2025 disbursements rose 26.2 percent from ₦510.9bn in 2024, reaching 12,501 businesses.
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MSMEs received 41 percent of funding, exceeding the bank’s 35 percent target, while women-owned businesses received ₦120.9bn.
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The bank deployed more than ₦108bn to infrastructure, including mini-grids that connected 11,777 households and businesses to electricity.
October 23, (THEWILL) – The Bank of Industry disbursed a record ₦644.9bn to businesses in 2025, up 26.2 percent from ₦510.9bn in 2024, while creating or supporting 1.68 million jobs.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BoI, Olasupo Olusi, disclosed this on Thursday at a media roundtable with business editors in Lagos, citing the bank’s 2025 Annual Development Impact Report.
Olusi said the funds reached 12,501 businesses across different sectors, with large enterprises accounting for 59 percent of disbursements. Small and medium-sized enterprises received 29 percent, while nano and micro businesses accounted for seven per cent and five per cent, respectively.
The figures come as the bank implements its 2025–2027 corporate strategy, which seeks to double its loan book, disbursements and impact instruments within three years.
Manufacturing, MSMEs Drive Funding Priorities
Despite the dominant share of large enterprises in total disbursements, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises received 41 percent of the bank’s 2025 funding, above its 35 percent target.
Women-owned businesses received ₦120.9bn, while women-led and youth-led businesses each accounted for 20 percent of total funding, according to the bank.
BoI also deployed more than ₦108bn to infrastructure projects. Its support included 100 mini-grids that connected 11,777 households and businesses to electricity.
The bank organises its lending across 15 priority sectors under five divisions: agro-manufacturing, other manufacturing, infrastructure, extractive industries and services. Information and communications technology is its newest sector.
Olusi said 80 percent of large-enterprise lending now goes to manufacturing and infrastructure, which the bank considers important for job creation and economic output.
“We also achieved our disbursement targets for Climate and Digital financing,” he said.
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New capital to support industrial financing
BoI has also expanded its funding sources to support long-term lending. It closed a €1.879bn syndicated facility in 2024 and secured €210m from international development partners in 2025.
In 2026, the bank raised an oversubscribed ₦250bn development bond, alongside €85m from the European Investment Bank for agriculture and €50m for healthcare manufacturing.
The bank also delivered more than 95 per cent of the Federal Government’s ₦200bn intervention programme, reaching 957,400 grant beneficiaries, 9,000 MSMEs and 104 large manufacturers.
Through its Rural Area Programme on Investment for Development, known as RAPID, BoI disbursed ₦6.5bn to 880 rural enterprises across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, supporting more than 8,000 jobs.
However, the bank’s report identified high inflation, elevated interest rates and exchange-rate volatility as factors that increased operating costs for MSMEs in 2025. Informality and inadequate financial records also continued to constrain business growth.
Olusi said the bank expects its impact to exceed the 2025 level in 2026 before consolidating its performance in the final year of the corporate strategy.
BoI is also working with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment on the National Industrial Finance Compact to attract more long-term capital into industry.
It plans to deploy the new European Investment Bank facilities to agriculture and local healthcare manufacturing, while expanding its ICT portfolio through the iDICE programme.
“Our mission is simple: finance what Nigeria makes, and create jobs for Nigerians,” Olusi said.
Ogochukwu Onwaeze is a writer specializing in business and economic journalism. At THEWILL News Media, she translates market trends, financial developments, and policy shifts into clear and engaging stories.
