ABSTRACT
The Bangladesh modification of microfinance was adopted by the Nigerian government as one of the means of channeling resources to the productive sector of the economy, an important part of which is the category or sector of small and micro enterprises. The female entrepreneurs
constitute the bulk of those businesses in this sector. This study evaluates the impact of Microfinance Bank services on the business performance of female entrepreneurs who have accessed microfinance services in 17 Microfinance Banks (MFBs) in Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Using cross sectional survey design, the study administers copies of structured questionnaires to 384 women entrepreneurs out of the population of 100,130 from the 17 MFBs and uses descriptive statistics, ordered logit regression to analyse the responses and test the hypotheses of the study. The study establishes a significant positive relationship between MFB services and business performance of women entrepreneurs, implying that an increase in MFB services would significantly impact on the performance of the women entrepreneurs. It also shows a significant
positive effect of microfinance services on the living standard of women entrepreneurs. The study also finds that training is the only non-financial services of MFBs that significantly influenced the performance of the women entrepreneurs with the greatest contribution being from loans. The study concludes that microfinance services have greatly enhanced the business performance of women entrepreneurs in Kaduna state but that the non-financial services offered by the MFBs have not impacted positively on the performance of the women entrepreneurs,
except in the aspect of training and network meetings. In line with these findings, the study recommends that since loan is a factor that has contributed to the business performance of the female entrepreneurs, the MFBs should device ways to extend the loan period to match varying
borrowing powers of clients so as to enable the entrepreneurs have adequate time to invest the loan and use the returns for repayment. Some of the devices the MFBs could use to extend the loan period of their clients are; flexible borrowing options and the option of replacing their
existing loan with a new loan for a larger amount. Also the MFBs should encourage their clients to save, because what is given out to the clients as loans is from the amount they save with the bank. This will help the banks to adequately cater for the financial needs of the micro
entrepreneurs by granting loans to them as their need arises.
