Welcome to our latest blog post where we delve into the fascinating world of SME banking. During our latest webinar on November 25, we invited Paolo...
This blog is brought to you by UPLINQ, a Member of the SME Finance Forum. The first part of that blog series is available here. -------------- In the...
The SME Finance Forum team and I would like to wish you a happy new year! At the outset, I would like to acknowledge how proud we are to have all of...
Welcome to our latest blog post where we delve into the fascinating world of SME banking. During our latest webinar on November 25, we invited Paolo...
This blog is brought to you by UPLINQ, a Member of the SME Finance Forum. The first part of that blog series is available here. -------------- In the...
The SME Finance Forum team and I would like to wish you a happy new year! At the outset, I would like to acknowledge how proud we are to have all of...
Featuring Global SME Finance Awards Platinum Winners G ain I nsights from Three Awardees and G et R eady to A pply fo r the 2025 Awards ***************** The Global SME Finance Awards Since its launch in 2018, t he Awards recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of financial service providers in delivering exceptional products and...
Welcome to our latest blog post where we delve into the fascinating world of SME banking. During our latest webinar on November 25, we invited Paolo Sironi to share some of the key findings from IBM's Institute for Business Value (IBV)’s recent study, which features contributions from the SME Finance Forum. Together with four banking executives...
This blog is brought to you by UPLINQ, a Member of the SME Finance Forum. The first part of that blog series is available here. -------------- In the first article of this series, we talked about the challenges faced by banks and lenders in providing financing to SMEs and enumerated the potential solution areas. In this second article, we are...
The SME Finance Forum team and I would like to wish you a happy new year! At the outset, I would like to acknowledge how proud we are to have all of you as members and partners. We thank you for your valuable efforts in scaling SME finance within your own institutions and partnering with the SME Finance Forum. As the headline implies, we are...
Summary of the webinar discussion “Sustainability in Supply Chain Finance – Need, Challenges and Opportunities.” October 25, 8 AM – 9:30 AM EDT Panelists: Host: Qamar Saleem, CEO of the SME Finance Forum; Moderator: Rajesh Mehra, Practice Lead for Trade & Supply Chain Finance, Financial Institutions Group covering the Asia-Pacific region at...
Access to finance is a significant challenge for MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) in India like other emerging and developing economies. Despite the Indian central banks policies and guidelines requiring banks to allocate a portion of their credit for the priority sector, which includes MSMEs, information asymmetry and lack of risk...
For some time, the SME Finance Forum has demonstrated how state-of-the-art SME financing must go beyond credit and use digital technology to enhance customer experience. It’s becoming evident that today’s SMEs expect even more—they expect that their access to finance, markets and management support/skills building can all come in one space, in a...
Introduction The ecosystem of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) has been recognized as a critical driver of economic growth and development in many countries worldwide. These enterprises play a crucial role in creating employment opportunities, generating income, reducing poverty, and improving the standard of living for people globally...
Summary of our webinar on Data and AI driving diversity in SME Lending . A recording of the session is available here . A deck is available for Members of the SME Finance Forum on our Member Portal On April 19, 2023 the SME Finance Forum and Uplinq co-hosted a webinar on the topic of Data and AI driving diversity in SME lending. This topic...
On March 22-23, 2023, the SME Finance Forum successfully organized an immersion program in Singapore to DBS and Tyme, both members of the Forum. 39 senior executives from 19 financial institutions and 15 countries attended the event. The presentations shown during the immersion program are visible to Members of the SME Finance Forum who are logged...
Summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace - 2023 March Session - LEADING DFIs A recording of the session is available here: https://vimeo.com/804283237 Presentations are available for Members of the SME Finance Forum on our Member Portal The “SME Finance Virtual Marketplace” is an online match-making platform that promotes partnership and...
In December 2022, we launched our 11th pulse survey. We received responses from 119 member institutions operating in 194 economies. Among the respondents, 81 are lenders and 38 are non-lenders. Level of Operation The feedback from member institutions continues to be positive. 46 percent of respondents say their level of operation has already...
In a wide-ranging interview, Michael Schlein, President and CEO of Accion , spoke to how the world can emerge from the pandemic to build a more inclusive, resilient global society through the transformative power of innovation. “The innovation we're seeing worldwide is allowing us to consider and find new ways of financing small and medium...
Summary of the SME Finance Virtual Marketplace – January Live Session . On January 11th, the SME Finance Forum Marketplace session gathered four fintechs, offering services ranging from growth partnerships and mobile money float financing to ‘trust’ scoring and trade financing support. Building a Trust-Driven SME Lending Ecosystem DigiAlly,...
Summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace – December Live Session . The SME Finance Forum, since its inception in 2015, has been featuring innovative fintechs to help connect its members with different technologies and partnership opportunities. Our virtual marketplace is a unique online match-making platform promoting partnership and...
Summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace – November Live Session . The SME Finance Forum, since its inception in 2015, has been featuring innovative fintech, helping connect members to different technologies and partnership opportunities. Through our virtual SME marketplace, we offer a monthly pitch session. The SME virtual marketplace is a...
At the Global SME Finance Forum 2022 Harnessing Digitalization for Sustainable and Inclusive SME Finance, more than 350 leaders and senior executives from 60 countries and over 180 banks, Fintechs and regulatory agencies gathered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Co-hosted by the National Bank of Cambodia and the SME Finance Forum, top-tier experts...
Summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace – October Live Session . The SME Finance Forum, since its inception in 2015, has been featuring innovative fintechs to help connect its members with different technologies and partnership opportunities. The monthly virtual marketplace is a unique online match-making platform promoting partnership and...
The SME Finance Forum hosted this event featuring three Asian-Pacific banking associations to explore ways for digitalization to unlock the potential of supply chain finance (SCF) and bring meaningful changes in its access to and availability for SMEs. In this online session, Dr. Matthew Gamser ( SME Finance Forum ), and Matthew Saal (...
Summary of the SME Finance Virtual Marketplace - August Live Session The SME Finance Forum since its inception in 2015 has been featuring innovative fintech, helping connect members to different technologies and partnership opportunities. Through our virtual SME marketplace, we offer, in particular, a monthly pitch session. The SME virtual...
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi)
Gender Finance
Aug 04, 2022
Access to finance has always been a significant constraint for women entrepreneurs, hindering their growth prospects. Lack of sex-disaggregated data has made it difficult to close the $1.7 trillion gap in financing faced globally by over 400 million women-owned businesses. A GPFI Workshop on “New Approaches to Closing Finance & Data Gaps for...
Summary of the SME Finance Virtual Marketplace - July Live Session The SME Finance Forum since its inception in 2015 has been featuring innovative fintech, helping connect members to different technologies and partnership opportunities. Through our virtual SME marketplace, we offer, in particular, a monthly pitch session. The SME virtual...
Just six years ago, more than half of SME retailers’ transactions were paper based – in the form of cash or cheques. That world is long gone. Why? A large part is because Covid-19 gave digital payments a huge boost. The pandemic made many physical transactions impossible over a significant period, and made digital alternative payments, whether by...
Summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace – May Live Session The SME Finance Forum, since its inception in 2015, has been featuring innovative fintechs, helping to connect its members to different technologies and partnership opportunities. Through our virtual SME marketplace, we offer, in particular, a monthly pitch session. The SME virtual...
This blog is a summary of our “SME Lending & Social Impact in India” webinar with U GRO Capital. Small businesses in India employ over 100 million people or 40% of India’s workforce and account for 29% of India’s GDP and 49% of its exports [1] . The current SME finance gap in the Indian context amounts to $221 billion or 10% of the country’s...
Summary of the SME Finance Virtual Marketplace – June Live Session The SME Finance Forum, since its inception in 2015, has been featuring innovative fintechs, helping to connect its members to different technologies and partnership opportunities. Through our virtual SME marketplace, we offer, in particular, a monthly pitch session. The SME virtual...
Summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace - Seventh Session with Fintechs The SME Finance Forum since its inception in 2015 has been featuring innovative fintechs, helping connecting members to different technologies and opportunities. Through our virtual marketplace, we offer in particular a monthly pitch session. On February 16th, the seventh...
In March 2022, we launched our 10th pulse survey with more targeted questions to understand how our members and their SME clients are adjusting to the new normal. We received responses from 118 member institutions operating in 181 economies. Among the respondents, 83 are lenders and 35 are non-lenders. Level of Operation The overall story here is...
If the unofficial theme of last year’s MENA Credit Guarantee Conference was how to move past the Covid emergency, this year it was about preparing for what comes next. Adulrahman Hesham al-Suwaidi, CEO of Qatar Development Bank (this year’s co-host) set the tone in his opening remarks, encouraging speakers to look ahead at how guarantee...
This blog is the summary of the virtual marketplace from March 9th, the SME Finance Forum hosted this event featuring three fintech and one DFI (Development Finance Institution) to share their experiences and different products and services in SME Finance. In this online session, Robert Scheunpflug ( Shanghai F-Road Commercial Services Co. Ltd ),...
This blog is a summary of the G20 Workshop on Digital and Innovative Financial Products and Services for MSMEs Beyond Credit . G20 countries’ Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) organized the virtual workshop with the Indonesia G20 Presidency on March 2, 2022. More than 500 industry leaders participated in the event and joined the...
A summary of the open webinar on “Beyond Funding, What Do Women Need to Advance Their Businesses?” SME Finance Forum and Women’s World Banking’s hosted panel explores how financial service providers can leverage business support services to empower women-led businesses with the skills, networks, and resources needed to reach their growth potential...
A summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace - Fifth Session - Fintechs The SME Finance Forum has been featuring a series of fintech, connecting members to different techonologies and opportunities. Particularly on November 11th, the fifth SME Finance Forum Marketplace session gathered six fintech companies offering services from e-lending, public...
A virtual marketplace summary . On January 12 th , the Forum hosted a virtual marketplace featuring six leading investors in the industry to share their experience in SME finance. In this online session, Elizabeth Davrishashvili ( FINCA Impact Finance ), Luz Leyva ( REGMIFA ), Chris Wehbé ( Lendable ), Edmund Higenbottam ( Verdant Capital ),...
Dear Members, Partners, and Friends, As 2021 draws to an end, let me take this opportunity to thank you for your continued engagement and supports. 2021 has undoubtedly been another challenging year for all of us, including the MSMEs which we are trying to serve. We are proud that so many of our members reported, in our surveys and check-in calls...
Credit scoring has the potential to improve access to capital and financial inclusion around the world. As financial institutions begin to have access to different types of data, the variety of credit scoring mechanisms have increased. One way that financial institutions have kept track of these alternative data and found ways to understand them...
This is a summary of the Sneak Preview of the World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery. On September 30th, WDR Director Leora Klapper and Lead Author Martin Holtmann made a special advance presentation, hosted by Matthew Gamser, CEO of the SME Finance Forum, sharing findings of the upcoming 2022 World Development Report (...
In February 2021, we launched our revised pulse survey, to be run quarterly, with more targeted questions to understand how our members, and by proxy how their SME clients, are faring. We had 71 respondents working in 143 countries, out of which 47 are lenders working in a little over 100 countries. Our second round of surveys this year, during...
Este blog es un resumen del evento En Foco con AB Bank Zambia . La digitalización se ha convertido en la principal tendencia de los servicios financieros para las PYMES desde que comenzó la pandemia de COVID-19. La tecnología apoya a las instituciones financieras a brindar servicios de forma más accesible a más personas en la base de la pirámide,...
This is a member spotlight summary. While entrepreneurs in the informal sector contribute an average of 60% to the GDP of West African countries, less than 15% of those entrepreneurs have access to banks as a source of financing. Significant progress has been achieved by fintech companies who are working with banks and e-money operators in the...
A summary of SME Finance Virtual Marketplace - Second Session - Fintechs A study published by Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School, highlighted that “60% of all financial technology firms at the global level are launching new products, services, and features during COVID-19.” With the purpose of adding value to...
This is an open webinar summary. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Centralized Finance (CeFi) have been one of the most trending subjects of discussion in the industry since 2018. Often understood as a blockchain-based form of financial technology that removes intermediaries when offering financial instruments, DeFi no longer relies on a third...
This is a virtual roundtable summary. The pandemic has brought several changes to the SME Finance ecosystem worldwide. Many banks and Big Tech companies chose to partner together to provide solutions to counter the challenges posed by COVID-19. This roundtable aimed to examine the increasingly important role of Tech Giants in the SME financing...
The United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) was held from Tuesday, 6 July, to Thursday, 15 July 2021, including a three-day ministerial meeting and the theme was "Sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic”. This High-Level event further builds on the outcomes of the joint side event organized...
One way of targeting investment to the businesses that need it the most is through an approach known as ‘directed lending’ (DL). It is a tool increasingly used by development finance institutions (DFIs) in recent years and involves lending to financial institutions so that they, in turn, lend to specific types of customer. MSMEs is the most common...
This blog is a summary of our webinar on Supply Chain Finance for Women-SMEs Supply Chain Finance (SCF) is an effective solution to extend access to finance to SMEs by developing a technology-driven low-risk product aimed to channel liquidity to strategically important value chains. It also has strong potential to close finance gaps for SMEs,...
This blog is a summary of our Virtual Roundtable Series #28 - Handling Insolvency during Crisis: What Will SMEs Need? SMEs are the backbones of many economies around the world, especially in the emerging countries where they play even more important roles in employment and income generations, innovation as well as provision of public goods and...
A webinar summary. Recent developments in technology have significantly changed the SME insurance industry. Insurtechs, insurance companies and other financial services providers are expected to explore new approaches to serve the SME market together. Jackson Theuri ( Britam General Insurance Kenya Ltd. ) , Khue Dinh ( Chubb Vietnam ), and Douglas...
A virtual roundtable summary. As the pandemic proceeds to the second year, the degree of information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers continues to increase. In the post-COVID-19 era, it is important to find new data sources and establish innovative risk models that are well-calibrated to provide accurate assessments of the SMEs’ capacity of...
A summary of our Member Spotlight with FNB . COVID-19 has exposed the needs for financial institutions to adopt technologies at a faster pace. Retrieving and automating data in a seamless way can make a difference in the way they operate and optimize business transactions, thus better serving their SME customers. This is undoubtedly a step forward...
A webinar summary. Women-led MSMEs (W-MSMEs) have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, with many reporting revenue losses over 50%, largely due to their smaller size, informality, and concentration in heavily affected sectors. IFC has implemented several COVID related interventions to support FI clients and their customers and conducted...
This is a summary of our open webinar “ Unlocking Digitalization Opportunities for Banks and SMEs .” While many SMEs were already undergoing a digital transformation, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the pace, unlocking new opportunities for banks, fintechs and SMEs alike. The SME Finance Forum hosted an open webinar with Adi Engel , Chief...
It was my distinct pleasure to host the first Virtual Marketplace session of the SME Finance Forum on April 21, 2021 , where representatives from eight leading development finance institutions (DFIs), namely Afrexim Bank , UK Development Bank ( CDC ), US Development Finance Corporation ( DFC ), FinDev Canada , Dutch Development Bank ( FMO ),...
Este artículo es un resumen de nuestra sesión con eFactor Network , una empresa de tecnología financiera basada en México. Dentro de nuestra misión de ampliación de conocimientos, el Foro brinda a nuestros miembros la oportunidad de compartir conocimientos y experiencias, así como productos y servicios específicos relevantes y útiles para la...
An open webinar summary. To address the inequalities between women and men, an increasing number of investors and financial institutions have adopted a new approach, gender lens investing. Since women were more severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become increasingly imminent to direct the capital towards the objective of achieving...
This blog is the summary of our third Member Spotlight with RootAnt . The concept of sustainability and the recognition of SMEs’ roles in the sustainable supply chain have gradually become more significant these years. Embedding sustainability factors into supply chain finance provides incentives to SME suppliers down the value chain, further...
This blog is the summary of a virtual roundtable : Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 on Women Entrepreneurs The impact of COVID-19 within different industries and countries is overwhelming, but one group was affected across the world – women-owned small businesses. Financial institutions need data, methods, and tools to measure the impact of the...
This blog is the summary of our Member Spotlight with Strands . It is crucial for small businesses to be able to use an instrument simplifying money management and aggregating their entire financial picture on one platform. Banks are taking the lead in providing such solutions, empowering SMEs to take control of their financial future and...
In February 2021, we launched our revised pulse survey, to be run quarterly, with more targeted questions to understand how our members, and by proxy how their SME clients, are faring. This quarter, we had 71 respondents working in 143 countries, out of which 47 are lenders working in a little over 100 countries. Most of our respondents (61%)...
A webinar summary.* India is the fifth largest economy in the world, and has more than 100 million MSME employees, or 40% of India’s workforce. Only 600,000 people within the Indian workforce have access to credit products which are designed to serve MSMEs, leaving out 60+ million MSMEs. Small and medium organizations equate to 99.4% of MSMEs but...
A virtual roundtable summary. Managing liquidity has been one of the major challenges that SMEs encountered since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The governments and credit guarantee institutions have implemented numerous relief measures, including subsidized interest rates, moratoriums on loan repayments, and deferments of tax payments,...
This blog is the summary of our first Member Spotlight with GlobalLinker . The COVID-19 pandemic presented a global challenge for businesses, including MSMEs and Banks, to reach and serve their customers. The global wave of closures and lockdowns paved the path for digitalization of business operations becoming necessary to sustain business as...
A virtual roundtable summary The COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic hardship to millions of SMEs. To help SMEs survive through this crisis, governments and financial institutions have been granting loan repayment holidays to their clients. These payment deferral programs can blur the lines between illiquid and insolvent borrowers, making credit...
Dear Members, As 2020 draws to an end, let me take this opportunity to thank you and your colleagues for your continued support during these difficult times. 2020 has been a challenging year for all of us and while we have seen the COVID-19 pandemic throw the world into uncertainty, we are proud that so many of you have found the new services we...
A webinar summary Blockchain is no longer just about Bitcoin. With the rapid development of enterprise-grade solutions, we're witnessing a proliferation of blockchain use cases in the banking industry. Ivy Luu ( nanopay Corporation ) and Dengfeng Zhang ( Linklogis ) joined the panel to discuss the past, present and future impact of technological...
We have now reached the eighth month of our Pulse Surveys and it goes without saying that this long period of data collection would not have been possible without our engaged members! In the months of October and November we had 75 respondents from 43 countries and 62 respondents from 40 countries respectively. In terms of respondent breakdown by...
A virtual roundtable summary Since the COVID-19 pandemic, public entities have introduced various policies and programs to mitigate the economic disruption. However, the relief measures including moratoriums on loan repayments, closure of courts and banks due to lockdowns, increased lending to businesses under government-backed scheme, as well as...
A webinar summary. While the supply chain finance sector is rising steadily, there is still a large unmet need in global trade finance, which has an estimated financing gap of $1.9 trillion annually around the world according to the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable. Nevertheless, with the availability of trade and transaction data,...
A virtual roundtable summary. COVID-19 has created new challenges, which require new solutions and strategic partnerships between FinTech companies, Banks, and Non-Banks. The latest report from the World Economic Forum’s Future of Financial Services series explores how the intersections of emerging technologies like AI, DLT, cloud, and IOT are...
A webinar summary. With the digitization of the supply chain, several technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, have been developed to help financial institutions and other partners reduce risk, lend more efficiently, and connect customers to suppliers. The SME Finance Forum hosted a webinar last week to understand how...
