Bank urges projects on healthcare

 Adekunle Yusuf

WHAT is limiting investment in the Health sector is no longer lack of capital but non-availability of viable projects or business ideas that can win the heart of investors.

This was the position of Sterling Bank Plc, one of Nigeria’s leading commercial banks, during the eighth edition of the biggest health exhibition in West Africa, hosted in partnership with Informal Markets, a multinational events and publishing company.

Speaking on a topic, titled: How To Finance Your Start-Up, Expansion or Dream, during a panel discussion, Mr. Adewale Adebowale, Head of Health Sector Finance, Health Sector Strategy and Innovation of Sterling Bank, remarked that it was no longer non-availability of capital that is hindering entrepreneurs but lack of viable projects or businesses that can attract potential investors.

He said Sterling Bank had stopped doing banking in the usual way, following its decision to specialise in five sectors of the economy in a bid to make great impact in many areas of the economy.  Based on the new approach, the bank now engages its customers to understand their businesses better before designing bankable solutions for them, he said.

Adebowale explained that the five sectors of the economy the bank specialises in are encapsulated in the acronym: ‘HEART of Sterling.’

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These are: Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation.

Besides providing finance, the banker said Sterling Bank is also concerned about advocacy as well as the need to support the Health sector to improve with digitisation and infrastructure in order to deepen access to quality healthcare in the country.