NIRSAL Connect
“Can a state-owned risk-sharing guarantor unlock enough commercial bank capital to make Nigerian agribusiness bankable at scale?”
Founded2013
HQAbuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria
IndustryFintech / Lending
The story
NIRSAL Plc is a wholly CBN-owned non-bank financial institution established in 2013 to de-risk agricultural lending in Nigeria via credit risk guarantees (up to 75%), technical assistance, and value-chain fixing. It is NOT a bank and does not lend directly to farmers — instead it partners with commercial banks, MFIs, DFIs and fintechs to channel finance into agriculture. NIRSAL Connect appears to be its digital front-door / stakeholder engagement layer. Distinct from NIRSAL Microfinance Bank, which is a separate CBN-licensed retail bank.
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2013
Established by CBN, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, and Bankers' Committee as a non-bank financial institution to de-risk agricultural lending· banking
2020
Signed MoU with Microsoft to deploy Azure FarmBeats for farm monitoring, IoT and data-driven agri-risk management· pivot
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by NIRSAL Connect
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
1 layer disclosed in NIRSAL Connect’s embedded-finance stack
Lending
NIRSAL Credit Risk Guarantee (in-house)Credit Risk Guarantee (up to 75% coverage on principal and accrued interest)Finance FacilitationBlended Finance structuringTechnical Assistance
Accounting gap: none