A few years ago, about two million people were unbanked worldwide. The World Bank is working to bridge that gap through a commitment to universal access to financial services by 2020. IFC Vice President Karin Finkelston says the segments that should be focused on are youth, women, rural populations and smallholder farmers.
In Kenya, SMEs are the mainstay of the economy and are expected to play a permanent role in realizing the Vision 2030, Kenya's evolvement group blueprint. Central Bank Governor Dr. Patrick Njoroge was the keynote speaker for the opening remarks at the Africa SME Finance Forum in Nairobi, which took place May 15-16.
30+ banking and finance professionals attended the Africa SME Finance Forum's study tour on May 14. The tour featured seven financial institutions and fintechs that have best in class, innovative ways of serving SMEs clients.
One of the visits was to Equity Bank Kenya Limited, a commercial bank headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
"It was a real life example of what's going on in the industry. It was great to hear their story and to sort of hear how we can go about it as well," said Salima Sikutwa of Madison Bank, Zambia.
Creditease founder and chairman Ning Tang speaks on this panel about financial sector and SME transformation.
Mastercard hosted two of the most influential women in microfinance, Andrea Jung, President & CEO of Grameen America, Inc. and Gina Harman, CEO of U.S. Network Accion, to talk about women's economic empowerment, the challenges female entrepreneurs face and more.
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group helps regulators to tackle challenges faced by them and promote financial inclusion says, Rachel Freeman from IFC and the World Bank Group. She shares the challenges faced by regulators and whether fintechs need sandboxes to grow. View her insights on these topics in this video during the Money 20/20 event, and also find out what IFC is doing to strengthen fintechs and banks.
A new episode of the ‘Pocket Economics’ podcast examines whether women are discriminated against when applying for loans.
The World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF), committed to collaborate globally to empower the economic development of the world by fostering innovative financial instruments for SMEs, innovators and startups, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the SME Finance Forum. The agreement means the two organizations will join in global efforts to ease access to finance for SMEs, which will create jobs and contribute to the world economy.
SME Finance Forum CEO Matthew Gamser shares why SMEs are the future of fintech, and why angel investors must pay attention to fintech during his WBAF Annual Congress 2018 keynote speech. SMEs and SME financing have not been center stage in most discussions of fintech. Yet this may be the market segment that can benefit most from the innovations fintech bring to financing. So it should not be surprising that, of late, we’re seeing a slow, but steadily rising profile of SMEs and key SME finance topics in fintech discussions.
SME Finance Forum members Strands Finance and CBA have long been at the forefront of banking innovation in Africa. In this video, Strands talks about the future of African Banking, SME Banking and their digital transformation to stay ahead of the competition. Strands and CBA’s ambitious digital breakthrough into the African market has placed CBA firmly in pole position in the region’s financial sector, doing more in six months to digitalize their banking efforts, than in the bank’s considerable history.
