Women Entrepreneurs’ Access to Microfinance Bank Credit In Imo State, Nigeria (Published)
This study examined women entrepreneurs’ access to microfinance bank credit in Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine the socio-economic characteristics of women entrepreneurs, and determine the amount of credit demanded and the amount of loan accessed by women entrepreneurs from microfinance banks from 2009-2013 and their repayment performance. Hypothesis tested was that socio-economic characteristics of women entrepreneurs do not significantly influence their access to credit. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and logit analytical tools. Data were collected from 80 loan beneficiaries and 71 non-loan beneficiaries selected from Microfinance banks with the aid of two sets of questionnaire. This study identified Microfinance banks as a major source of formal credit to women entrepreneurs with 80.26% of the overall credit requested accessed and repayment performance of 83.41%. Microfinance banks should create incentives to increase women entrepreneurs’ access to credit and loan repayment.
Keywords: Access, Credit, Repayment Performance, Women Entrepreneurs