NAC, Wesbank Meet On Operational Arrangements for Vehicle Finance Scheme

Top officials of National Automotive Council (NAC) and WesBank of South Africa met in Abuja recently on the proposed roll-out of made-in-Nigeria Vehicle Finance Scheme scheduled for later this year. WesBank, a division of FirstRand Bank, is South Africa’s market leader in automotive asset finance. The bank is represented in other African markets including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia. This position has been achieved through successful partnerships with leading Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), offering finance to consumers for both locally-manufactured and imported models.
At the meeting were the Director General, National Automotive Council (NAC), Engr. Aminu Jalal, who headed NAC Management team, comprising Mr. Luqman Mamudu the Director, Policy and Planning and Engr. Waheed Odetoro, Director, Industrial Infrastructure, while the WesBank delegation comprised Mr. Eugene Ochse, Head of Africa Operations) and Mr. Simon Ingersent, Designated CEO for Nigeria Operations. The WesBank team also had interactive meetings with potential partners, including selected vehicle dealers in Abuja to obtain first hand information and get acquainted with certain dealership practices peculiar to Nigeria.
The NAC Scheme has been designed around a network of vehicle dealers and manufacturers’ distributors from whose floor the purchase process will begin. Last October, NAC signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with FirstRand Bank in Johannesburg, South Africa, mandating WesBank to manage consumer vehicle financing for Nigerian assembled vehicles. NAC DG, Engr. Aminu Jalal said, at the occasion of MoU signing, that the Nigerian government approved the Nigerian Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) to attract investments from vehicle manufacturers globally and grow the supply of locally-manufactured vehicles.
He explained that the MoU agreement would allow WesBank to work closely with NAC to develop vehicle financing solutions specifically for those vehicles built in Nigeria with the aim of making them readily affordable for the average Nigerian car user.
Jalal added that the Vehicle Financing Scheme would make Nigerian assembled vehicles easily affordable on convenient payment terms spread over a period of about four years at affordable interest rate. The scheme is also intended to assist vehicle assembly plants in Nigeria to gain high volume within a very short time so as to facilitate local components development.

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