The Bank of Industry (BOI) has set a new milestone in Nigeria’s development finance sector, disbursing a record N636 billion in 2025 to over 7,000 businesses and 570 startups across the country.
The financing, the highest in the institution’s history, supported key sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, and services, while also promoting gender inclusion, youth entrepreneurship, and rural enterprise development.
The loans have contributed to the creation and retention of approximately 1.6 million jobs, underscoring the bank’s role in strengthening productive sectors, advancing economic reforms, and unlocking long-term capital for national growth.
In addition, BOI’s financing activities led to the creation and retention of approximately 1.6 million jobs.
Through the Guaranteed Loans for Women Programme, a N10 billion gender-focused facility providing up to N50 million per beneficiary, women-owned enterprises expanded access to affordable credit.
Youth-owned enterprises also received N12 billion in financing.
Under the Rural Area Programme on Investment for Development, 880 rural-based enterprises across the 36 states and the FCT accessed over N6.5 billion.
The bank’s strategic interventions included upgrading a tomato processing facility from 3.1 metric tonnes per hour to 10 metric tonnes per hour, and linking 47,508 smallholder farmers to formal processing value chains.
The bank also supported the deployment of 100 mini-grids in partnership with global development finance institutions, connecting 11,777 new customers to electricity. Those projects contributed to an estimated annual reduction of over 20,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.
President Bola Tinubu has described the milestone as concrete evidence that ongoing macroeconomic reforms are strengthening development finance institutions and unlocking capital for productive sectors of the economy.
“At a time of global financing constraints, Nigeria expanded access to long-term capital for its businesses. That is a direct outcome of reform, credibility, and institutional discipline,” Tinubu said in the statement signed by his info and strategy aide, Bayo Onanuga.
Incorporated in 1959 as the Investment Company of Nigeria, the bank first morphed into the Nigerian industrial Development Bank in 1964 before its restructure as BoI in 2001.
