geo/south-africa
Washington, D.C., September 4, 2018 – Spartan became the newest member of the SME Finance Forum, a global membership network that brings together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs.
The 4th Annual African Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, under the theme, “Unleashing Ideas: Innovation, Sustainability, and Enterprise Growth,” on Nov. 8-9.
As Africa’s number one women entrepreneurship conference, the event seeks to enhance the profile of women-owned and women-led businesses along with celebrating them for economic achievements.
The event will include, keynotes, interactive panel sessions, exhibition, workshops, high-profile and quality networking, B2B matchmaking and pitch competitions.
Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) will host the State of the SGB Sector Dinner and Quiz on Sept. 6 at the GIBS Business School in Johannesburg, South Africa. Participants can expect to learn more from key local industry reports and receive a breakdown of ANDE’s State of the SGB Sector 2017 Impact report from ANDE’s Executive Director, Randall Kempner.
An interactive quiz will also be featured to allow participants to test the knowledge they’ve gained and provide network opportunities among peers in their sector.
Funding is a huge problem for SMEs. The Access To Finance Report surveyed 11,000 entreprenuers to understand why SMEs cannot access funding. The report includes options for financing from 300 funders. The findings discovered that SMEs have difficulty knowing where to start when looking for financing. Typically, they start and stop at a bank, which is where they need collateral. SMEs need guidance on they type of institutions to look for, depending on where they are in the start-up stage - starting, invoice-factoring or growing - and also if it is industry-specific.
The report analyses a unique data set, provided by Finfind, of SMME funders and SMMEs seeking finance. It was sponsored by the SA SME Fund and identifies access to finances challenges, gaps and potential solutions. The Finfind 2017 cleaned data sample of 11 033 SMME funding requests is larger than the South African GEM report and is one of the most comprehensive studies on access to finance in the SMME sector in this country.
World Famous Events in association with the NSBC, brings you The Business Show: South Africa 2018 – Africa’s leading one-day business expo, conference and networking event for anyone serious about starting out and building a bigger business. With more than 12 500 delegates and hundreds of exhibitors, seminars and sessions – all under one roof in one day, it’s the largest and most successful one-day show of its kind in Africa.
Established NBFI based in South Africa with a proven track record of providing specialized financing only to SMEs without compromising their credit quality.
Houghton Estate, South Africa's Power 98.7 interviews IFC Country Manager Saleem Karimjee. Karimjee discusses IFC’s $62 million loan to South Africa's Mercantile Bank to support SMEs, with a strong focus on #women-owned and black-owned businesses.
Based on the results of this analysis, the researchers present a prioritised strategy for action that assists investors, stakeholders, and policy actors in directing their resources towards generating the greatest impact for entrepreneurs in the country.
One of their recommendations, based on the GEDI model and GEDI policy tool, is to improve the financing of SME and entrepreneurs by engaging in bank reform, mobile banking and crowdfunding for all South Africans.
