The British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution has signed a $25mn risk sharing deal with Ecobank’s unit in Sierra Leone.
- •The facility will support Ecobank Sierra Leone to “increase lending to ambitious businesses,” in the loan currency.
- •In addition to growing the lender’s loan book, it will also allow for the extension of lending tenors to up to five years.
- •The deal is the first investment under the Africa Resilience Investment Accelerator (ARIA), which is a collaborative initiative launched by BII and co-funded with FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank.
“This further strengthens our intent to be the bank of choice for Sierra Leone’s businesses and leverages our delivery of world class products, services, solutions, borderless digital pan-African platform and business skills training which are designed to support them in further growing their businesses,” Sebastian Ashong-Katai, Managing Director, Ecobank Sierra Leone.
The deal builds on a $50n trade finance facility between the two institutions in 2021, which Ecobank applied to “…deepen its reach across Africa and support supply chains in frontier markets such as Burkina Faso, Chad and Togo.”
The lender is a subsidiary of Ecobank Transnational (ETI), which is present in 33 markets on the continent.