Heritage Bank Appointed Lead Settlement Bank for Gezawa Exchange

HERITAGE Bank Limited has been appointed as the lead settlement bank and transaction adviser to the Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange Limited.

Meanwhile the two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate the ease of agro commodity trading in a more structured way.

In line with this mission, Heritage Bank and the Exchange recently hosted over 10,000 farmers in 3000 cooperatives in the 44 local governments of Kano State.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Heritage Bank Plc, Ifie Sekibo, who was a panellist at the second GCMX Farmers’ Cooperative Forum in Kano at the weekend, stated that the partnership is targeted at de-risking the sector to bring about structured and enhanced agro-business and attain food security that leads to economic development.

Sekibo, who was represented by the Executive Director, Jude Monye, explained that the partnership which would help bridge the huge gap associated to risk, will fast track effective price discovery mechanism and traceability and enhanced trade settlement services.

Specifically, the bank’s helmsman stated that under the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) and the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Heritage Bank would provide funding to aggregated farmers in the 2020 farming season to grow various products that will serve as raw materials to the processors, thereby ensuring market linkages and access to the market as well as reduce importation and conserve Nigeria’s external reserves.

According to him, with its assigned position Heritage Bank would play a pivotal role in ensuring that there would be an effective and readily available platform for market linkages among players in the agribusiness value chain, involving FMCGs, warehouse operators, collateral managers, processors, farmers’ cooperatives to transact in a seamless way that guarantee quality, quantity, payment and delivery.