GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

The study carefully analysed the effect and efficacy of bank lending on the growth and development of entrepreneurial activities in Lagos State. Ex-Post Facto research design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted in Lagos State. The population of the study consisted of all bankers and entrepreneurs in Lagos State. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and fifty bankers (150) and one hundred and fifty entrepreneurs (150) in Lagos State, which constituted the sample size of three hundred (300) respondents used for the study. The main instrument used in this study was a questionnaire titled "Bank Lending and Entrepreneurship Development Questionnaire (BLEDQ)". The validation of the instrument was carried out by an expert in test, measurement, and evaluation to ensure the validity of the instrument. Cronbach Alpha Technique was used to determine the level of reliability of the instrument. The reliability coefficient obtained was 0.77, and this was high enough to justify the use of the instrument. The researcher subjected the data generated for this study to appropriate statistical analyses such as mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while simple regression was used to test the hypothesis. The test for significance was done at 0.05 alpha levels. It was established in this paper that there are many ways banks have contributed to entrepreneurial growth and development in Lagos State, ranging from the creation or participation in small and medium-scale enterprise finance investment funds, to the creation of special unit for financing small and medium-scale enterprises. And all those forms of contribution have immensely impacted entrepreneurs and the development of their businesses. The paper concluded that there is significant effect of bank lending on entrepreneurial development in Lagos State. One of the recommendations made in this study was that it is very pertinent for the management of commercial banks to formulate policies on managing loans and their supervision, managing difficult loan beneficiaries, credit risk management, as well as monitoring and reviewing customer cases.

KEYWORDS: Entrepreneurship, Bank loan, Development, and Lagos State