cat/womens-entrepreneurship-finance
WEConnect International, a global network of corporations committed to sourcing goods and services from women suppliers, signed an agreement to boost access to markets for women-owned small and medium enterprises in emerging markets.
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group is increasing access to SME finance in Lao PDR by fostering a business enabling environment and developing market solutions for serving SMEs.
According to the release, SMEs make up 99 percent of total enterprises and over 80 percent of the workforce, however they are confronted with a financing gap of $1.2 billion.
SME Finance Forum member Diamond Bank was awarded the Women’s Market Champion award from the Global Banking Alliance for Women.
Diamond Bank was chosen for its outstanding impact on women development and for providing them with holistic solutions that meet their needs, according to the article.
SME Finance Forum member, Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) will work through its “investment arm” IDB Invest to target the private sector.
According to the article, IDB will focus on tourism, agribusiness, renewable energy and general manufacturing with a goal of bringing in US$3.5 billion in direct private sector capital.
Aynur Gümüşsoy, an entrepreneur in Turkey, showcases her bazlama, a type of flatbread very popular in her native town.
She among other women entrepreneurs, have been able to grow their businesses under the Finance and Advice for Women programme led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Union and the Turkish government.
The programme provides access to finance through credit lines to local banks dedicated to women-led smes, business advice, training and support.
SME Finance Forum member, Diamond Bank released its Q3 financial report, which revealed their disbursement of N1 billion to small business owners under the lending scheme partnership with Women’s World Banking.
Diamond Bank remains one of the leading retail banks in Nigeria. According to the article, Diamond Bank is among the first five SME customer bank in Nigeria in the KPMG customer service survey 2018.
Key successes of the bank include:
SME Finance Forum member African Development Bank (AfDB) provided a $50 million credit to Fidelity Bank Plc. to support SMEs, with a minimum of 30 percent of the credit going towards women-owned enterprises in Nigeria.
According to the article, the credit will benefit SMEs in manufacturing, health and education sectors.
A continuation of MicroSave’s research on developing financial services for women was released this month. The publication details areas such as, microfinance, digital financial services, direct benefit transfers, MSMEs and agent networks.
Information surrounding what financial service providers (FSPs) lack notice of when creating financial productions for poor women along with the challenges these women face are discussed.
According to the article, key barriers for women include:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released the 2018 Financial Access Survey. The survey includes information from 189 countries spanning over 10 years. Key findings in the report include: Highlighting the use of retail agent outlets, mobile money growth, and progress in women’s financial inclusion.
According to data from the report, financial inclusion for women has shown improvement.
Under the new initiative, ‘Digital2Equal’ led by IFC, a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group, seventeen leading tech companies have joined together to support this initiative focused on increasing opportunities for women.
The companies participating include: Airbnb, Inc., Google LLC, LinkedIn, Didi Chuxing Technology Co, Elo7, Facebook, Giraffe, Jumia, Lazada, Lynk, Mercado Libre Inc, MyBank, Myntra Jabong, PayPal Holdings Inc., Salesforce.com Inc., SweepSouth and Uber.
