Collaboration among players key to financing SMEs — Speakers
Industry players in technology, financial and entrepreneurial sector have called for collaboration to provide risk-free credits to Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs).
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They also advocated for a financial and digital literacy programs for these SMEs to understand and appreciate innovative ways of growing their businesses.
"Challenges we face as SMEs in Ghana is the fact that lenders see it as risky to lend to us , they see it as a challenge but we are big players in the job sector," Mr Kwame Anim Somuah , president of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers stated as a member of the discussion panel on the topic : Bridging the credit risk gap for SMEs in Ghana, at the MTN organised Business Executive Breakfast Series held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra yesterday.
Risk reduction
Another member of the discussion panel , Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh , the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprise Agency noted that her outfit has resolved to provide financing to SMEs but face the challenge of uncertainty of identifying the right causes these SMEs must take to grow their businesses.
"The challenge here is that these SMEs are highly informal but are 70 percent of the nation's workforce, however they don't exactly know what they want, there the need for collaboration to from fintechs, financial institutions and relevant industry to organise clinics for these enterprise to realise their needs," she noted.
She called on stakeholders to collaborate and help these SMEs to plan and with financial agencies to provide rich financial support for them.
Embracing AI and technology
The CEO of MTN Mobile Money Services, Mr Shaibu Haruna charged SMEs to embrace advanved technological and Artificial Intellectual (AI) to facilitate their inclusion into the financial ecosystem.
"With AI and advance technology we are able to profile customers and design solutions for their needs;these digital foot prints if well embraced will address the risks inhibiting the provision of financing for SMEs and allow credits to this enterprise," he stated.
Standards and digitization
The Chief Enterprise Business Officer , Angela Mensah Poku charged industry players to push standard, digitization and empower as the core in improving the lot of the SMEs.
She revealed that her outfit will soon introduce innovative ways to support SMEs to fully rich the potential and access financial credits from financial institutions.