NAMLI – Microfinance · Lagos, December 2026

Underwrite a cohort

Several hundred Nigerian microfinance banks face a March 2028 compliance deadline and cannot individually fund readiness work. A sponsored cohort brings twenty-five institutions into one room and produces a documented position for each.

The argument

The only realistic setting in which a shared arrangement forms

The Standards expressly permit shared services and centralised arrangements with prior CBN approval. That route materially reduces per-institution cost, and it is the single most useful provision in the circular for this sector.

No individual microfinance bank will convene a shared arrangement alone. A room of twenty-five comparable institutions, working through what one would require and who would need to approve it, is the only realistic setting in which one forms.

Who sponsors

Who a sponsored cohort fits

CandidateWhy it fits
Microfinance bank associationsSector mandate, direct member benefit, and the convening authority a shared services consortium requires
Development finance institutionsSector AML readiness is a defensible technical assistance line, and the shared services outcome is a systemic result
Apex and intervention fund institutionsDirect interest in the governance quality of the institutions they lend through
Deposit money banksMany microfinance banks settle through a deposit money bank, which carries correspondent exposure to their AML quality

What sponsorship includes

What a sponsor receives, and what it does not

What a sponsor receives

  • Twenty-five state and unit microfinance banks equipped with a documented proportionality position, a prioritised gap register and a 90-day remediation plan
  • An aggregate sector findings report, anonymised, showing where the cohort’s capability stands against the Standards
  • A shared services issues list developed in the room, identifying what a consortium arrangement would require
  • Named attribution in programme materials, within an agreed rights schedule

What a sponsor does not receive

  • No institution-level diagnostic findings, gap registers or working papers.
  • No named institution cases without that institution’s separate written approval.
  • No representation that the Central Bank of Nigeria endorses the programme or the sponsorship.

Stated at the first meeting and written into every agreement. This boundary is what makes institutions willing to be honest in the room. It is not negotiable at any level of contribution.

Technology vendors

No vendor sponsorship

NAMLI does not accept vendor sponsorship of this programme. The clinic teaches institutions to define their own requirements before engaging any vendor, and that work cannot be funded by the parties it assesses. NAMLI does not rank or endorse vendors.

NAMLI – Microfinance

Explore the programme

  • What You Build

    Every module produces something your institution takes away and owns. Nothing is assigned as homework and nothing is delivered as slideware.

  • Participation

    General attendance does not replace institution-level preparation. Admission is based on an executive sponsor, a defined institutional problem, completed pre-work and the authority to make implementation decisions.

  • Faculty

    One asks what a supervisor would challenge. The other asks whether your method and governance can support the answer. The pairing is the product.

  • Contact

    Tell us your institution, your executive sponsor and the problem you want the clinic to work on. We respond within one working day.

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