What You Have to Know to Participate in Tinubu’s N100-bn Consumer Credit Scheme

President Bola Tinubu has launched the Consumer Credit Scheme he promised Nigerians with N100 billion. Many financial analysts have rated the move as a long-awaited effort to stimulate Nigeria’s economy, and transplant responsible spending culture.

But a new financial policy targeting consumers in an economy that is largely informal doesn’t necessarily come handy. Over 80 percent of employment in Nigeria comes from the informal sector. It’s not unlikely government  lending citizens monies to fork out on consumption and other personal needs will hit a snafu there.

The Nigeria Consumer Credit Corporation administering the scheme has rolled out parts of the process the scheme will follow.

1. The scheme will run on a portal the corporation says will come live shortly.

2. Its administration will work with the national identity management agencies, the CBN, and other demographic data sources.

3. The corporation will put the funds in banks interested in promoting consumer credit culture through monitoring and scoring.

4. It has divided the scheme implementation into two phases. Phase 1 lending goes to federal and state civil servants, and white-collar employees numbering 720,000, 3.8 million, and 27.3 million respectively. The government can track the applicants here for monitoring/scoring and debiting. For the federal civil servants, the IPPS will play the role of tracking and debiting. State banks handle that of the state civil servants. For those in the white-collar gig economy, the Global Standing Instruction will come to use. The GSI empowers banks to debit borrowers’ accounts elsewhere when they dodge repayment.

5. Phase 2 comprises 73.2 million consumers that make the informal sector tick. The level requires compilation of two credit registers, credit scoring, and GSI , and automated account sweep—to monitor, score, and debit.

6. The first phase kicks off on May 24 while the second phase begins May 2025, about a year’ time.