SME expert and Forbes contributor Elaine Polfeldt provides tips and tools to help SMEs beat the odds of financial downfall within the first and fifth year of business. Polfedt, says making a financial plan in advance to prevent unfavorable results is key. She mentions utilizing financial software tools such as, Quickbooks, PayPie and Xero (a SME Finance Forum member) to help with examining finances.
Take a look below for helpful tips:
Dev Raman, Managing Partner at Lastaki shares how to make the many moving parts to an SMEs financial area come together smoothly. Financial stability is key for SMEs, five tips on how to address financial indiscipline are below:
SME Finance Forum member Development Bank of Nigeria is working to aid in providing finance to MSMEs. Calling it a "nightmare," its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Tony Okpanachi, was appointed in 2017 with the mission to alleviate the financing constraints faced by MSMEs and small corporates in Nigeria. The Sun says his job remains to provide financing, partial credit guarantees and technical assistance to eligible financial intermediaries on a market-conforming and fully financially sustainable basis.
According to Boston Consulting Group research, when women business owners pitch their ideas to investors for early-stage capital, they receive significantly less funding — a disparity that averages more than $1 million— than men. Yet businesses founded by women ultimately deliver higher revenue—more than twice as much per dollar invested—than those founded by men, making women-owned companies better investments for financial backers.
For years, traditional banks shied away from serving many Africans because of the costs of physical branch expansion and the risks associated with serving low-income people. Small entrepreneurs found it particularly hard to access credit as they often lack the required collateral or credit history. But the launch and growth of digital financial services across the continent is changing that situation. This IFC Impact article profiles how mobile money offers Africans a financial future.
A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) analyst says that credit card lenders are feeling the pinch as loan losses and rewards expenses rise. Rising loan losses and increased rewards expenses are putting pressure on card lenders’ returns. The result is that one of the most profitable consumer-lending categories in recent years may become more of a middling player, AnnaMaria Androtis writes.
The program is the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility (WEOF), a joint initiative established by IFC and the Goldman Sachs Foundation. Its goal is to provide access to capital for 100,000 women, stimulating economic growth, and building stronger, more prosperous communities.
Although WEOF still has six years to run, to date, it has made over $990 million in investments in 26 financial intermediaries in 26 countries— far surpassing its original target of $600 million. It has also funded 10 advisory projects in nine countries with total project value of $4.3 million.
As companies continue their march toward digitization, they’re increasingly adding artificial-intelligence (AI) techniques to their value-creation toolboxes. In this McKinsey conversation with Bill Ready, chief operating officer at PayPal, he explains how cloud platforms are making AI available to a wider set of users, unlocking a plethora of opportunities. However, access to these technologies and the digital economy is not distributed evenly across the population. Opening up access to all could create a new trajectory for future economic growth.
SME Finance Forum member, Creditease Fintech VC Fund, has invested in 25 U.S. and Chinese companies since its founding in March 2016. The P2P and wealth management, China-based firm invests in spaces that are underfunded, particularly those in SME lending. In this Forbes interview, managing director of Creditease, Anju Patwardham, shares details on the fintech companies she has selected to invest in.
Lloyd Blankfein is Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. In this exclusive IFC Perspectives interview, he talks about the Goldman Sachs Foundation’s groundbreaking 10,000 Women initiative and the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility (WEOF), a first-of-its-kind partnership with IFC, to improve access to finance for SMEs owned or run by women.
Launched in 2014, WEOF has now raised almost $1 billion to support women entrepreneurs across the developing world, helping to transform thousands of lives.
