cat/products-and-business-models
In furtherance of its commitment to women empowerment and the creation of a Women Empowerment Fund (WEF), Access Bank and Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) have agreed on a $30 million or N4.8 billion facility for on lending to women in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. The line of credit will provide financial resources to women owned small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria.
An online finance facilitation centre set up by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in June to provide advisory and credit facilitation support to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) has helped the latter raise Rs 85 crore in the July-October period, according to CII sources. About 20 companies from the manufacturing, infrastructure, IT, energy, textile, agro-processing and e-commerce sectors have raised money during this period. CII expects to raise over Rs 400 crore by the end o
Timing is important. It has been said: if you’re too early, no one will understand; and if you’re too late, everyone will have already forgotten. Leveraging today’s technologies can help your bank penetrate the under-banked segment and drive new revenue growth. This post looks at ways for banks to deliver new financial services whose time may have come.
It is exciting times for the nascent crowdfunding industry in Asia. While the crowdfunding movement is slowly gaining steam, there are still some people who are not clear what it constitutes and the possibilities that it holds. To share my views on the topic, this article will look at how start-ups as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can potentially benefit from this new development.
Royal Bank of Scotland is set to enter the peer-to-peer lending market in the latest sign that alternative finance is gaining traction by moving into the mainstream. The high street bank is planning to pilot an online peer-to-peer platform before the end of the year in a tie-up with a third party operator. The move is part of a broader strategy to work with alternative finance providers as a way to support lending to smaller businesses.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) said on Thursday it has approved 148 million U.S. dollars line of credit (LoC) for Kenya's Equity Bank for on-lending to key economic sectors in the country. A statement from AfDB said the credit is expected to further leverage Equity Bank's capacity to deepen its lending activities to vital economic sectors such as manufacturing, agribusiness, transportation, financial services, telecommunications, construction and energy.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has launched a €200m sustainable energy financing facility in Poland. The Polish Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (PolSEFF2) is implemented via the country's commercial banks. It will be on-lent through local banks to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The loans will finance investments to replace or refurbish heating, cooling, electric and associated systems in order to l
The Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the MasterCard Foundation have announced a new US$15.5 million programme designed to improve the productivity and incomes of almost 730,000 smallholder farmers in Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. According to Dr.
Investors could be missing out on the next Richard Branson as a whole pool of up-and-coming businesses are being ignored, says Nadja Franssen of Dutch pension fund SPF Beheer. The SRI investment specialist believes small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging and frontier markets can offer strong, sustainable returns but investors are mainly focused on companies at opposite ends of the business scale.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) signed an agreement that will allow Cordaid of the Netherlands to provide $4.6 million in additional financing to IFC’s West Africa Venture Fund, focusing on small and medium enterprises in Sierra Leone and Liberia at this critical time as they battle the unfolding Ebola epidemic. The investment will provide an extra boost to the $13.6 million West Africa Venture Fund, that was established in 2010, as part of IFC’s SME Ventures program which seeks to fund and train entrepreneurs in some of the world’s t
