Nigeria’s young entrepreneurs are not waiting for jobs; they are trading, building, crafting, and serving customers every day. What has kept their hustle from becoming enterprise is not ambition, but access: working capital, a credit history, and a formal route into the financial system. Today, the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP) closed that gap with the launch of YouthCred for Entrepreneurs, a national credit line for young business owners, the third and most ambitious phase of the YouthCred programme, delivered at the Federal Ministry of Finance Auditorium in Abuja.
Today’s launch is a promise kept. In his Democracy Day address, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced that the Federal Government would deliver structured consumer credit to hundreds of thousands of young Nigerians through YouthCred rolled out in phases, beginning with NYSC Corps members, extending to employed youth, and culminating with young entrepreneurs. Phase one delivered: over 51,000 Corps members enrolled in the NYSC pilot, and more than 30,000 young Nigerians have since graduated from credit education and received financing. Phase two extended the programme to employed young Nigerians nationwide. Today, phase three completes the arc, bringing the same model to the young business owners who power Nigeria’s markets, workshops and storefronts.
At its core, YouthCred is built on a simple discipline: real financial knowledge before real credit. Every participant completes structured credit education before accessing a loan, learning to borrow, budget, repay and build a credit history the right way. It is this learn-before-you-borrow model, not the loan alone, that makes YouthCred a durable intervention: each cohort enters Nigeria’s credit system educated, documented and creditworthy.
The entrepreneurs phase is designed around a truth that conventional lending has ignored for decades: more than 90% of Nigeria’s MSMEs trade not as registered companies, but in the name of the person who built them. Traditional business credit demands what these young owners do not have: corporate registration, audited accounts, collateral. YouthCred for Entrepreneurs inverts the model: it extends working and growth capital of up to ₦2,000,000 directly to the individual entrepreneur, aged 18 to 35: the market trader, the artisan, the service provider, the small manufacturer, underwritten on their education, their affordability, and their repayment record, not on paperwork their business was never structured to produce. Each disbursement opens a credit file, seeds a repayment history, and gives the owner the financial identity their hustle has always lacked the foundation on which formalisation, registration, and scale are built.
The programme is one coordinated national investment: the Federal Ministry of Finance provides the policy anchor and oversight; CREDICORP provides the capital and credit infrastructure; and Partner Financial Institutions provide the last-mile delivery, underwriting, disbursement, and business support. Every naira moves against clear eligibility, an affordability cap that protects applicants from over-borrowing, and a transparent paper trail. That discipline is why CREDICORP’s portfolio stands at a non-performing loan rate of 0%, with public funds deployed as a trust, not patronage.
“Mr. President made a commitment to Nigeria’s young people, and today we complete its delivery: Corps members, employed youth, and now the entrepreneurs who power our markets and workshops. YouthCred for Entrepreneurs is capital deployed with discipline, matched to young Nigerians who are already building. This is how we unlock the next million Nigerian businesses,” said the Honourable Minister of Finance, TaiwoOyedele.
“Hardworking young Nigerians deserve structured credit, not charity,” said Uzoma Nwagba, Managing Director/CEO of CREDICORP. “More than 90% of our MSMEs trade in the name of the person who built them so that is exactly how we built this credit line: for the individual, not just the entity. Every naira is tied to eligibility, repayment discipline and business growth, because when builders win, Nigeria wins.”
Delivery began in the hall. Wema Bank, the pilot Partner Financial Institution for the Entrepreneurs phase, onboardedapplicants on the spot at today’s launch, with the PFI network set to expand in the coming months into markets, trade associations and cooperative societies across all 36 states and the FCT, on the road to YouthCred’s target of reaching one million young Nigerians. Across all of its programmes, CREDICORP has now disbursed over ₦47 billion to more than 301,124 applicantsnationwide, proof at scale that structured credit, extended responsibly, works for Nigeria.
The application portal is live. Young entrepreneurs should visit youthcred.com today, complete the credit education module, check their eligibility, and apply or walk into a participating Partner Financial Institution as the rollout expands nationwide.
The Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP) is a development finance institution of the Federal Government of Nigeria, established in April 2024 under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, with a mandate to accelerate access to consumer credit to 50% of all working Nigerians by 2030 by strengthening Nigeria’s credit infrastructure, mobilisingwholesale funding and credit guarantees for financial institutions, and driving a cultural re-orientation around responsible consumer credit. YouthCred is CREDICORP’s flagship youth credit and credit-education programme; with the Entrepreneurs phase now live, a young Nigerian can enter the credit system as a Corps Member, grow within it as an employed professional, and build a business on it as an entrepreneur one credit identity, carried for life.
For more information, visit www.credicorp.ng
