Africa MSME Finance Program Advisory Services to Banco Commercial e Do Investimentos

Summary

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has developed an initiative that aims to deepen and broaden the African financial sector and raise the standards of financial services provided to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME). The initiative is designed to deliver high impact quickly and aims to invest some US$300 million in new investment commitments to 30 financial intermediaries in Africa, each with a portfolio of US$50–75 million in loans to 50,000–70,000 MSMEs.

Banco Commercial e Do Investimentos (CBCI) offers a wide range of products and services to its MSME customers including:

• current, savings and deposit accounts
  
• certificates of deposit; secured overdrafts
  
• short and medium term loans
  
• import/export loans
  
• guarantees
  
• debit cards
  
• leasing
  
• domestic and international payments
  
• foreign exchange
  
• insurance brokerage
  
• business and financial advisory services.

While the bank is already very much involved in the MSME market, it realises the need to focus on improving its all round offering in this segment if it is to continue growing at the rate it has achieved over the past few years.

Coffey International Development is developing work under this contract with the primary aim of building BCI’s institutional capacity.

Our goals are to assist BCI to develop:

• an MSME financing strategy for underserved areas
  
• a relevant organisational design for MSME financing
  
• MSME products re-packaging and bundling for MSME customers and new MSME focused products missing from it product suite
  
• loan tracking systems (including policies, procedures, risk management and MIS) for use in MSME financing
  
• staff training and change management for MSME financing
  
• marketing approaches, brochures and a customer care culture for MSME financing
  
• value or Supplier Chain financing through it Middle Sizes Enterprises Banking Unit
  
• business services for MSMEs.

Click here for further information.