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Asante Financial Services Group announces strategic partnerships to expand provision of affordable credit to MSMEs in Africa.
Credit Risk & Scoring
Our member, Asante Financial Services Group, is driven by passion to see to the growth of the MSME sector in Africa. It is through strategic partnerships such as the one with SOLV Kenya, a member company of Standard Chartered Banking Group, that we are able to extend our reach to the Kenyan MSMEs In Sub-Saharan Africa, micro, small and medium...
Member Asante sets foot in Rwanda offering mass transit service operators short-term financing
Alternative Financing
Digital Financial Services
Digital lending or alternative lending is a catalyst to inclusive financial services for segments that are not a key target for traditional financial institutions. The use of AI-powered decisioning systems for evaluating individual credit eligibility by digital lending platforms has now become critical for micro, small and medium enterprises (...
PODCAST: The lifeblood of global trade: improving financial inclusion for SMEs
Trade Finance
This podcast prepared by our industry partner Trade Finance Global, features Matt Gamser, CEO of the SME Finance Forum and Magda Bianco, co-chair of the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI). It gives an overview of current G20 initiatives designed to help SMEs get easier access to finance. Among those initiatives is the Global SME...
Makhtar Diop Presentation during the SMEFF21 Annual Conference
Sustainable Finance
Conference Proceedings of the 2021 Global SME Finance Forum Day 1 - October 18th Opening Remarks Makhtar Diop, Managing Director and EVP, International Finance Corporation (IFC) We need contribution from SMEs to help us reach our sustainability goals. Individually not a major source of greenhouse gases but collectively account for a significant...
African man closeup. Photo Credit: World Bank / Curt Carnemark
Guarantees
Covid-19
Posted originally in the Financial Resilience Around the World, World Bank Blog Series Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel region, was already facing difficult challenges when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred. The security context had been deteriorating since June 2018, with an upsurge in violent attacks by terrorists and...
Webank app on phone
Digital Transformation
*This article is an excerpt with key highlights from WeBank’s recent presentation at the 2021 Knowledge Annual Conference of the IFC. The pandemic has shoved the global economy into a state of chaos, affecting both large corporations and SMEs across nearly all sectors. However, the global outbreak has also brought opportunities to innovate...
Member News: Supporting SME Global Bounce-Back Through Collaboration - By Banking Circle
Covid-19
Digital Financial Services
The past 12 months have brought a multitude of unprecedented challenges for small businesses. It was inspirational to witness how they responded with versatility, creativity and tenacity, and how that brought about rapid innovation, new collaboration and empathy that continues to benefit society as a whole. It was also exciting to see the...
Triodos take on investments with a gender lens
Non Financial Services
Gender Finance
Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted many lives across the globe. In this blog we focus on women. Worldwide, the pandemic has hit women harder than men. Women run a higher risk of COVID-19 contagion due to their occupations in health-related activities. They are also overrepresented in jobs where social distancing has been more difficult...
Article Cover of a Bulb in Color
Fintech
Our member Raiffesisen Bank International’s Partnership Program Elevator Lab’s fourth round took place virtually in the second half of 2020. Elevator Lab had been selected as one of the “Best Financial Innovation Labs in 2020” by the Global Finance. The Lab aims at finding innovative fintech solutions and building mutually beneficial partnerships...
Article Cover with people working on a laptop in color
Financial Inclusion
Our member Kabbage plans to expand on the work done by researchers from NYU Stern on the kind of lenders that had the highest minority share among their Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans. They will work on exploring the reasons behind the found correlation between the lender type and borrower race. The current research note focused on...
Article Cover with lines of White in Color
Fintech
We are happy to share that our member Bitbond , Germany’s leading tokenization and digital asset custody technology provider, and Bankhaus von der Heydt (BVDH), one of Europe’s oldest banks, have joined forces to issue a Euro (EUR) stablecoin (EURB) on the Stellar network. The EURB stablecoin is the first stablecoin issued directly by a banking...
Article Cover of Mountains with text in color
Sustainable Finance
As the world reflects on progress on climate action since the Paris Agreement signing, it has been clear that action by small and medium-sized companies is essential for accelerating the transition to a net-zero emissions global economy. The SME Climate Hub has joined forces with Oxford University to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (...
Article Cover of Sun in the Clouds in Color
Covid-19
We are happy to share that our member U GRO Capital has recently entered into a strategic partnership with the Wadhwani Foundation, a global non-profit organization. The partnership between the two organizations will mutually benefit the micro, small and medium enterprises that are predominantly present in education, healthcare, hospitality,...
Article Cover of People in Office with Graphics on the Picture in Color
Islamic Banking
We are happy to share that our member Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector’s (ICD) has established Finnovation Award to recognize, showcase and encourage financial institutions that provide an outstanding solution to the financial industry. Finnovation awards are a part of their new online platform “ Finnovation ” which...
Article Cover of a Man Pointing towards the Screen in Color
Operational Risk
Our member Afreximbank has taken the lead in creating a platform for Customer Due Diligence (CDD)/Know Your Customer (KYC) issues, with a special emphasis on African financial institutions and corporates. The platform referred to as Mansa will provide a single source of primary data required for performing customer due diligence checks on...
Article Cover of Hands Cutting Thread with Scissors in Color
Digital Financial Services
We’re delighted to share that our member Fern Software’s premier CRM and loans management system, FaaSBank is now used by over 50 community and SME lending organizations from coast to coast in Canada. FaaSBank was collaboratively designed with Community Futures Development Corporations (CDFDCs) in Ontario, Canada. User friendly and intuitive,...
Article Cover of a girl using her phone and laptop in Color
Fintech
COVID-19 has immensely changed the way we work. With an increase in reliance over online communication and remote work, there has also been an increase in security and data threat issues. Therefore, to meet the needs of modern-day digital challenges, our member Fern Software has partnered with Salesforce, one of the largest cloud-based software...
Article Cover of a Building in Black and White
Islamic Banking
One of the main goals of our member Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector’s (ICD) asset management department is to create an “Enabling Environment” for the growth of Islamic Finance and build “Partnerships” with the private sector to enhance resource mobilization. The SME Funds at Asset Management Department of ICD is...
Article Cover of a man sieving wheat in color
Covid-19
Our member Triodos Investment Management has shared an informative column on “How Covid-19 is changing financial inclusion,” by Frank Streppel, Head of Global Investments at Triodos IM. He is a seasoned impact investing specialist with more than 20 years of expertise. According to him, financial inclusion facilitates access to all other basic...
Article Cover of Man's face in color
Equity
Small and medium businesses have been some of the hardest hit in the COVID-19 pandemic. And all that has been as true in emerging markets as it has been for SMBs in the developed world. Tunde Kehinde has had a front-row seat witnessing and responding to that crisis. He’s the CEO and co-founder of our global member Lidya , a startup out of Nigeria...