As 10 million petty traders will be targeted for Trader Moni loans as part of the Federal Government's second term Next Level agenda, Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has disclosed.

Trader Moni is one of the government's initiative under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), a programme targeted towards awarding collateral-free loans to petty traders across the country.

The programme kicked into full gear last year ahead of the 2019 general elections as the Vice President visited a lot of markets across the country to launch it, with many criticising it as a vote-buying scheme.

With the presidential election now over and Osinbajo and President Muhammadu Buhari re-elected for a second term in office, the VP has dismissed reports that the programme has been suspended.

According to a press statement issued by Osinbajo's spokesperson, Laolu Akande, on Thursday, March 21, 2019, the TraderMoni scheme and other GEEP micro-credit products (MarketMoni and FarmerMoni) are still very much in operation.

“So far, a target of 30,000 minimum beneficiaries per state has been achieved in majority of the 36 states and FCT since after the national and state polls.

“We have had over 28,000 disbursements across 10 states since after the elections,” he disclosed.

He further revealed that the next level of the programme will target 10 million petty traders to benefit from the government's most controversial Social Investment Programme.

“Under the Next Level agenda, Trader Moni loans will target ten million petty traders, a significant ramp up from the initial target of two million beneficiaries,” he said.

Under the Trader Moni scheme, an initial N10,000 loan is given to petty traders and once they repay within six months, they can receive a new N15,000 loan and when they repay that they can get another N20,000 loan until they get as much as N100,000.

Akande disclosed that measures have been adopted to enhance repayments from traders, with some already moving to the second level after repaying the initial N10,000 loan to the government.

He said, “Working with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), we successfully piloted the concept of the BVN as digital collateral; and we saw repayment go up significantly on the MarketMoni and FarmerMoni loans.

“For TraderMoni, beneficiaries can pay back at any commercial bank in the country just like a NEPA or WAEC bill; all they need to provide the bank teller with is their phone number. We also developed and successfully piloted scratch cards as a repayment option for beneficiaries who stay kilometres away from the nearest banks in their community. The cards are loaded the same way Telco recharge cards are loaded, thus requiring no new learning curve.

“This improved repayment received compliance to the extent that in January, the Bank of Industry began second level disbursements - disbursements of N15,000 - to beneficiaries in Lagos, Borno, Ogun and Oyo states for trader who had successfully paid back their first N10,000 loans.”

He concluded by saying the GEEP's long term vision is to empower over 30 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in Nigeria with interest-free, collateral-free loans.