The Development Bank of Nigeria said it disbursed the total sum of N1.4 trillion since its inception.
DBN’s Managing Director/CEO Dr. Tony Okpanachi, disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists after its 2025 Annual General Meeting Thursday in Abuja.
Okpanachi, also said that the amount disbursed led to the creation of 1.6 million jobs across the country.
He said: “And I can tell you cumulatively since DBN establishment, we’ve disbursed over N1.4 trillion in terms of loans to financial institutions that onlend to micro, small and medium enterprises. And from that, over 1.6 million jobs have been created in terms of that. So it’s from the impact perspective that we normally come from in terms of what we want to do.”
The DBN MD further said the sum of N300 billion was disbursed to about 180,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across Nigeria.
“In terms of numbers, I think for last year alone, we did over 180,000 in terms of number of MSMEs. So 2025 was a very good year for us. But to us, it’s not just about the disbursement. It’s about the impact.
“So what impact has it made? So when we disburse to the financial institutions, we go to the MSMEs to see how it is impacting their business. We see that the funds disbursed to them actually get to them. And not only get to them, it’s also impacting their business so that they’re able to create jobs for Nigerians. They’re able to make the rightful impact that they’re supposed to make in the Nigerian economy,” he further said.
He said that over 48,000 MSMEs were trained in terms of our capacity building. “So we train them in best practices and how to make them access finance from financial institutions that we work with,” Opanachi added.
Bukar Abba Kyari, Independent Non-Executive Director in DBN, told journalists that the total sum of N8.5 billion was paid out to shareholders in the year under review.
“We have declared a dividend of 85 Naira per share and that translated to a total cumulative of 8.5 billion Naira in dividends paid out,” Kyari said.
On DBN’s 2026 outlook. he said the development finance institution will work not only to onboard more MSMEs but also to build their capacity.
“Considering the uncertainties that the recent geopolitical upheavals has brought to the fore, we believe that we will still end up making our mark in the market. We are targeting still, in fact we have set targets for ourselves that include larger participation of MSMEs in the financial inclusion. One of our key things this year would be also to train as many small, medium enterprises as possible,” he added.
