Five Lessons From COVID-19 Crisis and SMEs

Over a period of less than two weeks, since it was officially declared a pandemic by WHO, COVID-19 has disrupted lives and economies around the globe. According to a briefing issued by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the COVID-19 pandemic will likely shrink the global GDP by almost one percent in 2020. Countries have taken unprecedented and drastic measures to contain the spread of the virus by closing towns, cities, and national borders, disrupting not only the big corporations but also millions of SMEs around the world. 

Blog - Supporting Firms: From Crisis to Recovery

This webinar was carried out by the World Bank on April 15, 2020, as part of the COVID-19 Pandemic FCI Webinar Series to discuss the implications and policy responses to support the private sector and financial sector in the context of COVID-19. (See the list of speakers at the end of this post)

The discussion followed an agenda around firms' affectations due to COVID-19, lessons learned from previous crises, policy responses, financial sector solutions, and some country case studies.

Uncertainty, Fear, and Coronavirus: The New Reality for Africa’s Entrepreneurs

Promoting good practices in women entrepreneur financing has always been an important focus of the SME Finance Forum. Financial inclusion for women has always been challenging, particularly in emerging and developing markets where women entrepreneurs have lower access to capital, which severely restricts their progress and ability to contribute to the national economies. The COVID-19 crisis makes financial inclusion for female entrepreneurs even more challenging as it poses serious threats to the financial stability of SMEs, and especially to women entrepreneurs.

Open Webinar - African Innovations in SME Finance - Mobile Financial Services

The use of mobile financial services (MFS) has grown exponentially over the last 10 years, making sub-Saharan Africa a leader in MFS innovation, adoption, and usage. Banks and financial institutions are building digital financial services ecosystems and partnering with telcos and fintechs to provide financial services like online deposits and withdrawals, money transfers, merchant payments, loans and savings products amongst others to reach both the ‘last mile’ and scaling up to serve SMEs.

COVID-19 and Credit Reporting: Suppression is Not the Solution

There remains tremendous uncertainty surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic as a health care crisis. There is also uncertainty about the economic collateral damage being caused by the pandemic—primarily around the slope of the economic recovery curve (will the curve be “V-,” “U-,” or “L-shaped?” Whatever recovery trajectory different affected economies ultimately travel along, the following facts are universally true:

G-20: Data Enhancement and Coordination in SME Finance: Stocktaking Report

The GPFI’s stocktaking of data available on financing for SMEs, both at the country level and at the client level of the major international development finance institutions, reveals serious gaps.  Annual aggregate data is captured annually for only a minority of the world’s countries by the IMF, OECD, and others. Little if any data is available at a country level on financing for women entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs or other key segments of interest to GPFI’s Financial Inclusion Action Plan.

Member Survey Results on the Impact of COVID-19

During crises like COVID-19 pandemic, sharing experiences and learning is vitally important.  The SME Finance Forum team sent out a rapid survey to our members this week to take their pulses on how their institutions and their SME clients are faring so far (Click here to see what we asked). We had 45 respondents from 32 different countries: 24 banks/FIs, 12 Fintechs, five Development Banks, and four others (associations). 

Subscribe to