“Beyond the orthodox banking system, we need to help diversify the financing ecosystem in order to help SMEs obtain funds for growth purposes,”said Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng at the Securities Commission Malaysia on Monday.
SMEs comprise about 98.5% of total business establishments in the country, and employ two-thirds of all workers in Malaysia.
smefinance
News via The Malaysian Reserve.
The program involves two free tools: a personalised energy advice service and a small business energy check online benchmarking tool. AlphaBeta and Xero developed the online benchmarking tool after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found remaining on a contract for an extended period significantly increased the risk that a business is paying more than necessary for energy.
Article via The Sydney Morning Herald.
Vietnam, an emerging market in Southeast Asia is making progress in addressing the issue of gender equality. An International Finance Corporation (IFC) 2017 report on ‘Women-owned enterprises in Vietnam: Perceptions and Potential,’ showed that 57 percent of women-owned businesses in Vietnam are microenterprises, 42 percent are small-medium enterprises (SMEs) and one percent are large enterprises. Vietnam’s central government is targeting to have one million enterprises by 2020, of which more than a third will be owned by women.
For Zambia’s digital financial services (DFS) industry, 2018 saw growth in the number of active DFS account users, growth in the number of agents nationwide and growth in the number of products available to customers. These indicators of growth in the industry are findings in the Annual Provider Survey (APS), which UNCDF has conducted for over three years, and which UNCDF and Bank of Zambia compiled into the State of the Zambia DFS Industry 2018 Report.
Payroll and HR services provider OnPay has partnered with Xero to bring a full suite of back-office services to Xero’s customers in the agricultural industry – and the accountants who work with them.
Article via CPA Practice Advisor.
Lending practices in most of the developing world, where wealth concentration in movables can be even greater, is disproportionate with concentration on immovables as the sole type of eligible collateral, most often due to inadequate legal and institutional protections available.
China’s central bank will issue a three-year development plan for the country’s financial technology (fintech) sector, in a move to support the fast-growing industry while fending off risks.
News via Reuters.
For India to gain double digit growth figures going forward, its micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) will have a prominent role to play in employment generation, exports, skilling and making the sector more formalised. MSMEs contribute 33% to India’s GDP and employ 11.7 crore people (that is 40% of India’s workforce). This snapshot of a panel discussion with four leading FinTech startup founders by Nisha Ramchandani of Outreach at Axilor Ventures.
To help boost women’s access to financial services, VisionFund International, the microfinance arm of World Vision, launched the Women’s Empowerment Fund (WEF) in 2016. The fund’s aim is to build women’s resilience by expanding financial access and delivering high quality credit, savings and insurance products developed with women, especially mothers, in mind.
