First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has launched a \u20a620 billion healthcare financing fund aimed at closing the funding gap faced by private healthcare businesses in Nigeria.\n<\/p>\n
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The fund, unveiled at FCMB\u2019s inaugural healthcare summit in Lagos, will provide financing for hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, maternity homes and other healthcare enterprises.\n<\/p>\n
According to the bank, the financing will support business expansion, acquisition of medical equipment, infrastructure development, working capital needs and technology investments.\n<\/p>\n
The initiative comes as Nigeria intensifies efforts to strengthen its healthcare sector and increase local production of medicines and medical devices. Through the Presidential Initiative for Unlocking the Healthcare Value Chain, the government is targeting the local production of 70% of medicines and medical devices by 2030.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealthcare is a social imperative and an economic priority,\u201d FCMB Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Yemisi Edun, said in remarks delivered by the bank\u2019s Executive Director, Corporate Services and Service Management, Felicia Obozuwa, at the summit.\n<\/p>\n
She noted that building a stronger healthcare system requires access to capital that is affordable, patient and available for the long term.\n<\/p>\n
FCMB said the healthcare fund will form part of a wider financing package that combines lending with advisory services and strategic partnerships to help healthcare businesses improve operations and attract investment.\n<\/p>\n
The bank\u2019s move addresses one of the biggest challenges facing private healthcare operators in Nigeria \u2014 limited access to affordable financing.\n<\/p>\n
President of the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN), Njide Ndili, highlighted the importance of combining funding with technical support, capacity building and quality standards to help healthcare businesses succeed.<\/p>\n
Ndili referenced HFN\u2019s partnership with the PharmAccess Medical Credit Fund, which demonstrated that small and medium-sized healthcare businesses can achieve strong repayment performance when supported with the right financial and operational structures.\n<\/p>\n
As part of the partnership, HFN will work with FCMB to develop a framework for pre-qualifying healthcare facilities and preparing businesses to become investment-ready. The federation currently represents more than 400 member organisations and 4,000 healthcare professionals.\n<\/p>\n
Beyond providing capital, stakeholders at the summit stressed the need for healthcare businesses to improve governance, financial reporting, management systems and growth strategies to ensure effective use of funding.\n<\/p>\n
Nigeria\u2019s government has also increased investment in healthcare through various funding initiatives. Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, disclosed that more than \u20a6339 billion has been disbursed through the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund over the past 12 years, including \u20a6235 billion released in the last three years under the Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative.\n<\/p>\n
He added that an additional \u20a632.9 billion has recently been allocated to support more than 8,300 primary healthcare centres, with plans to expand coverage to approximately 13,000 facilities nationwide.<\/p>\n
Salako called for stronger collaboration between government and private investors, urging healthcare operators to improve corporate governance, strengthen financial reporting and explore blended-finance models to support sustainable growth.\n<\/p>\n
The summit highlighted investment opportunities across primary healthcare, diagnostics, pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical equipment, digital health and healthcare infrastructure.\n<\/p>\n
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FCMB said the new financing initiative will support businesses across Nigeria\u2019s healthcare value chain as they expand capacity, improve service delivery and contribute to a more sustainable healthcare system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has launched a \u20a620 billion healthcare financing fund aimed at closing the funding…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":984558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[395029,64,75630,49621,380505,607,16401,395030,59763,395031,9396,28478,262834,158164,117942,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-984557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-accelerated-regulatory-incubation-programme","tag-business","tag-business-development","tag-business-growth","tag-capacity-building","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-financial-inclusion","tag-keystone-bank","tag-msmes","tag-naccima","tag-nigerian-entrepreneurs","tag-small-businesses","tag-sme-financing","tag-smedan","tag-smes","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}