Access Bank Plc has reiterated its commitment to financial empowerment for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME’s) for Women and Youths in Africa.
Speaking at the African Sustainable CEO Business Round-table in Lagos, the managing director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, who was represented by the bank executive director, Personal Banking, Victor Etuokwu, said, “The world is embarking on a new age, the age of the entrepreneur, the agile SME owner, and the flexible innovator.

The use of digital financial services will continue to be one of the main drivers for financial inclusion in 2015. In the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Network, we have noted quite a few interesting trends both on the technology side and the policy side that should have a direct impact on advancing financial inclusion through digital means this year.

For every nine men raising equity financing to start and scale their businesses, only one woman does, according to Access to Capital by High-Growth Women-Owned Businesses, a report by the National Women’s Business Council. That sucks!Fundraising for your company is hard, even for men, but, women face greater challenges.

Data-driven insights can be invaluable for businesses – and improve financial inclusion in a world where 2.5 billion people still have no access to financial services.Patterns and predictions can influence every part of our lives. What particularly interests me is how insights can deliver impact and influence in real world applications. I see the power of data every day, because we use it to inform our own business decisions at MasterCard. We use it as a route to identify areas for growth, address concerns, to understand our audiences and to drive social good on a global scale.

There has been a lot of buzz in the financial technology (FinTech) space over the last several months, with a high-profile IPO, several more apparently on the way, and more and more venture funding flowing into FinTech startups. Bold ideas for financial services innovation are getting more visibility – just this month, Australian Wealth Index (AWI) listed the 50 Best FinTech Innovators, and CFI’s Elisabeth Rhyne conveniently categorized the list so it’s easy to see at a glance where the innovations are.
At Venture Lab, we found the AWI list interesting but also felt it missed something significant: namely, that one of the biggest opportunities for FinTech is figuring out new solutions to include the billions of lower-income people who are today excluded from formal financial services. And it’s not charity that compels us to reach these customers – it’s good business. These customers represent a big market. In fact, they’re such a significant part of any emerging market’s customer base that any global providers with dreams of international expansion must cater to them if they want to succeed.

Standard Chartered, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS have all withdrawn from the small and medium enterprise sector in the UAE. Is this an indication of problems in the sector? Absolutely not. It is an indication of trouble for the global banks and a flawed banking strategy.Understanding the issue, and the opportunities that it presents, requires an understanding of the common attributes of these four banks and their failures. The starting point is that all are known as strong commercial banks catering exclusively to retail and corporate clients for most of their 150 to 270- year histories.