Since its formation, the SME Finance Forum has been on top of all of the major trends in this field. We predicted the importance of partnership when all around us were emphasizing fintech-bank competition. We declared that competitiveness in financing now had to include additional non-financial support for improving SMEs themselves – a reversal of decades of advice, but now common wisdom. Finally, we predicted the growing importance of converging non-financial firms on this market in this past year’s Global SME Finance Forum, just as the rest of the world was starting to note the potential impact of “techfins”, “tech giants”, “platforms”, on the sector.
To celebrate the new decade, this year’s Global SME Finance Forum will look much farther forward, to imagine where we might be in SME financing a decade from now. We will test the limits of our prescience by predicting how products, delivery channels, institutions and enabling environments might look 10 years from now.
Following our practice of leveraging as much knowledge sharing as we can from our membership and our wider public audience, we will launch a public "Call for Insights" on what SME finance will look like in 2030. Best articles will be shared in a special report to be issued at the conference, and the authors will be considered for speaking roles at the event. Submission guidelines will be shared soon.
Bookmark 26-28 October on your calendar to join us in Bangkok for what has become the largest, highest-level, most technically in-depth, more geographically diverse meeting on SME financing that occurs each year!