Innovations in Delivery Channels

IFC invested $75 million in a Gender Bond issued by Turkey’s Garanti Bank (a SME Finance Forum member). IFC details the story of how and why the investment with Garanti was a bold one. The bank, which is known in the market for its commitment to access to finance for women, is the first private sector bank in the world to launch a gender bond dedicated to financing women-owned small business in emerging markets. The bond has a six-year term maturity and was issued in line with IFC’s environmental and social guidelines and inspired by the ICMA Social Bond Principles.

According to a survey of 2000 directors at UK SMEs, almost half of UK SMEs (49%) would seek financing from non-bank lenders as they begin to better understand the business models of companies in this space, including fintechs. 

A Leeds-based fintech known as Rebuilding Society, founder Dan Rajkumar, recently said:  “When you are a business and you borrow from a bank that agreement is with the bank and it can call it in at any time. They also take quite a high margin with low savings rates,” explained Rajkumar.  “I created Rebuilding Society to give everyone a better deal.”

The SME Finance Forum LinkedIn provides an opportunity for financial experts to view the latest news, reports, data and discussions regarding the SME finance field. The group is comprised of more than 11,000 bank executives, investors, advisory service providers and financial technology experts, who share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs.

A new report by Fraedom reveals banks are working to address SMEs globally. According to the report, 61 percent of senior executives in the banks view SMEs as their current biggest growth opportunity, with a strong bias towards the medium enterprises (50-249 employees). Fintechs are also stepping up and becoming a catalyst for growth for SMEs, they are providing them with access to proper funding. 

The report covered:

CreditEase - an SME Finance Forum member - founder and CEO Ning Tang recently shared with Mckinsey his perspective on how fintech players, from both within and outside China, can capture the opportunity among small and midsize Chinese businesses and how artificial intelligence (AI) can help. The following commentary is adapted from that conversation.

The Mastercard Foundation in partnership with BFA released Digital Commerce and Youth Employment in Africa, new research that shows 80 million young people will benefit from the rise of digital commerce in Africa by 2030. These findings indicate that the digital commerce sector has the potential of disrupting the future of work on the continent.

Businesses such as Amazon and Uber have created successful customer experience models. In this blog, the author shares his common denominators that the financial industry should pay close attention to

1. Be customer experience obsessed.
A study found that 68% of millennials have stopped doing business with a brand due to a single poor customer experience. 

During the Global SME Finance Forum 2018, Matthias Kröner, CEO of FIDOR Bank talked about open banking, APIs, social banking, and the failings of traditional banks regarding applications.