BNI
Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) has in the last few years advanced a total of Sh178 billion loans to women- led Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in order to help grow these enterprises in the country.
KCB Managing Director (MD) Annastasia Kimtai said seven years ago, the bank set up a Sh250 billion fund to support women -led enterprises. This came after a realization that women were receiving only 10 per cent of funding from financial institutions.
“We then sought to find what the challenge was and found out that the women lack assets such as land, which financial institutions require as collateral in order to advance loans to them, we then became very intentional in our entire to help them and came with the fund” Kimtai said.
She said they also discovered women need training, networking and forums so that they can learn from each other in order to grow and the bank has been working with the women entrepreneurs in these areas in order to grow their businesses. “Consequently, we came up with products that are unique to women- led enterprises in order to help them grow since women form more than 50 per cent of the population,” she stated.
The MD was speaking in Naivasha, during the East Africa Business Network International (BNI) conference in which she had been invited as a chief guest to discuss ways in which the organization can work with the bank to support the members` businesses.
Business Network International (BNI) is the world’s largest business networking and business referral organization with over 300, 000 members in 10, 000 chapters worldwide. Kimtai underscored the importance of MSMEs to the economy of the country, saying their contribution to economic growth and employment cannot be ignored.
To this end, she said KCB bank has also formed a Biashara Club for MSMEs in which they are taught financial literacy and taken for benchmarking in other countries so that they can learn best practices in businesses and grow their networks. Mutai said in these clubs, they have also been training the MSMEs, coaching and mentoring them.
“In this club, we help them identify opportunities for growth, for instance, we recently took a team to United States and realized there is a huge market for Kenyan products there and all we need to do is to train the businessmen and women to understand this market and meet this huge demand,” she said.
The MD noted that Kenya has been faced with disasters such as drought and floods in the recent past and her bank has decided to give the affected business people who have taken their loans moratorium period by adjusting their payment periods depending on the agreement with the individual business man or woman.
“For those who insured their businesses, we are talking to the insurers to hasten processing of the compensation,” Kimtai observed. She said BNI approached them to attend their meeting in Naivasha to chat out ways on how we they can collaborate and also train their members, enlighten them on best business practices and opportunities within and outside the country and help them find solutions to various challenges facing them.
BNI Kenya Chapter National Director Elizaphan Muraguri said in the last 15 years, they have processed over 42,000 business referral s valued at over Sh.1.7Billion. “This has had huge impact on the economy and the general population, considering MSMEs employ millions of Kenyans,” Muraguri said.
He said in BNI they focus on training business people, making referrals and building relationship s through trust as a way of supporting the growth of businesses.
Muraguri also stated that his organization is seeking to grow membership from all over the country and is currently investing in technology and will soon turn to using Artificial intelligence (AI), known as BNI Connect away from the traditional technologies for communication.
“Coming together as business people is the only way to revolutionize how we do business and technology is of major importance in this,” he said. Uganda BNI Chapter National Director Diana Ninsiima said their aim of coming together is to share experiences and learn from each other as they seek ways of collaboration.
The BNI East Africa is plugged to the over 300,000 other BNI members in 79 countries all over the world. BNI worldwide membership has generated $16.2 billion in revenue in business referrals (about two trillion Kenya shillings).