BAS Capital and BAS Finance win high honours on the 2026 BusinessDay BAFI Awards after closing greater than ₦105 billion in mixed financing transactions.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of BAS Group, Abdulateef Hussein, has stated that Nigeria’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face financing challenges that reach past excessive rates of interest and restricted credit score provide, with unsuitable mortgage buildings, stringent collateral necessities and prolonged approval processes additional limiting entry to capital.
Hussein stated many companies battle to safe applicable financing not essentially as a result of capital is unavailable, however as a result of accessible funding usually fails to match their operational wants, money flows and progress plans.
“The question is not only whether capital exists. It is whether anyone has done the work of matching it to the business in front of them,” Hussein stated.
“A manufacturer with a confirmed order does not need a five-year facility. A company preparing for acquisition does not need another overdraft. Most of what gets called a funding gap is a translation failure.”
He made the remarks as BAS Group’s subsidiaries, BAS Capital and BAS Finance, acquired two awards on the 2026 BusinessDay Banking and Financial Institutions (BAFI) Awards, held on October 9 at The Civic Centre, Lagos.
BAS Capital was named SME Investment Bank of the Year, whereas BAS Finance acquired the SME Lender of the Year award.
The recognition highlights the group’s strategy to addressing financing challenges by way of working capital services, invoice-backed lending and structured capital elevating for companies at completely different levels of growth.
Over the previous 12 months, BAS Finance disbursed ₦55 billion, whereas BAS Capital closed transactions valued at greater than ₦50 billion.
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) contribute considerably to Nigeria’s financial output and employment, but many proceed to face difficulties accessing formal credit score.
A determine offered on the 2025 Chartered Institute of Directors Annual Directors Conference put Nigeria’s SME financing hole at ₦13 trillion, equal to roughly 17 per cent of gross home product (GDP).
Although estimates differ relying on the methodology used, the dimensions of the shortfall underscores the challenges companies face in acquiring financing to maintain operations, fulfil orders and broaden.
High borrowing prices stay a significant constraint, however the construction of obtainable financing can even decide whether or not a enterprise qualifies for credit score and whether or not the ability meets its wants.
Conventional lending necessities might drawback companies whose strongest indicators of reimbursement are confirmed orders, excellent invoices and predictable money flows somewhat than substantial bodily collateral.
Lengthy approval processes can create extra difficulties for firms that want funds rapidly to pay suppliers, meet payroll or full buyer orders.
BAS Group maintains that addressing these challenges requires lenders and monetary intermediaries to contemplate the aim of financing, a enterprise’s reimbursement capability and its stage of growth when structuring funding.
BAS Capital supplies capital-raising and advisory providers to companies which have outgrown typical lending however might not but qualify for protection from conventional funding banks.
The agency buildings transactions and syndicates capital from institutional and growth finance sources, connecting companies with funding suited to their growth plans and strategic aims.
In 2026, BAS Capital closed greater than 25 transactions valued at over ₦50 billion.
Yinka Adetuberu, Managing Director of BAS Capital, stated many companies have viable markets and growth alternatives however battle to seek out monetary establishments prepared to construction transactions suited to their dimension.
“The companies we work with are not short of ambition or of a market. They are short of someone willing to do the structuring work at their size,” Adetuberu stated.
“That work does not scale the way a lending book does, which is precisely why so few institutions do it. We think it is where the returns are.”
The agency’s mannequin focuses on serving to companies entry capital past typical loans, notably when their financing wants require extra complicated preparations to help growth, funding or different strategic transactions.
While BAS Capital focuses on structured progress funding, BAS Finance supplies lending to companies which will fall exterior typical financial institution credit score standards.
The firm emphasises financing linked to receivables and productive belongings, providing options to lending fashions that rely closely on conventional collateral.
Within 9 months, BAS Finance disbursed ₦55 billion to greater than 120 companies, with a mean ticket dimension of ₦2 billion and a median disbursement time of seven days.
Through Zuvy Technologies, acquired by the group in 2025, BAS Group has additionally expanded its invoice-backed financing options for suppliers serving massive firms.
Adnan Kayode, Managing Director of BAS Finance, stated efficient lending will depend on the flexibility to evaluate the underlying transactions and money flows that help a enterprise’s reimbursement capability.
“Lending to a small business well is an underwriting problem before it is a capital problem,” Kayode stated.
“If you can see the invoice, the buyer and the delivery record, you are not taking the risk the market thinks you are taking. What we have built is the ability to see those things quickly enough for the financing to still be useful.”
By assessing receivables, patrons and supply information, the corporate seeks to guage companies utilizing info past the standard collateral necessities that may limit entry to formal credit score.
BAS Group maintains that companies require completely different types of financing as they develop, however monetary establishments don’t all the time adapt their choices to fulfill these altering wants.
A enterprise might initially require bill financing or working capital to fulfil orders earlier than in search of structured progress capital because it expands. At later levels, it could want funding advisory, wealth administration and different monetary providers.
The group brings a number of of those capabilities collectively by way of its monetary providers ecosystem.
BAS Finance and Zuvy Technologies function in lending, whereas BAS Capital and BAS Wealth deal with capital elevating and advisory. BAS Financial Services supplies Shariah-compliant asset administration, whereas ALLY Microinsurance and ALLY Healthcare supply insurance coverage and healthcare-related cowl. The ALLY platform serves as a distribution channel throughout the ecosystem.
The strategy displays the group’s place that bettering SME financing requires options that tackle companies’ rapid money movement necessities in addition to their longer-term funding wants.
Rather than treating entry to finance solely as a query of how a lot cash is out there, the mannequin emphasises matching the suitable financing instrument to every enterprise, its belongings and its capability to repay.
The awards mark the second consecutive 12 months that BAS Group firms have been recognised on the BusinessDay BAFI Awards.
This 12 months’s recognition extends throughout two areas of SME financing: lending and structured capital elevating.
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Abuja, BAS Group operates throughout lending, funding banking, wealth and asset administration, insurance coverage and monetary know-how.
Its subsidiaries embrace BAS Capital, BAS Wealth, BAS Financial Services, BAS Technologies, ALLY Healthcare and ALLY Microinsurance.
The group’s newest awards come amid persistent considerations about entry to finance for Nigerian SMEs, highlighting the potential function of different lending fashions and tailor-made capital-raising options in addressing the nation’s enterprise financing challenges.
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