August 2009

About 3 years ago the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), launched a 3 year program (The SA SME Banking Program) with the objective to address the key constraints that limit access to finance for businesses run by women, previously disadvantaged citizens and other SMEs in South Africa.

The program, which is closing this year, strengthened partnerships between banks and non-bank financial institutions, helping them to upgrade their management information systems, to train loan officers, and to better understand how to service the SME sector.

In addition, business development service providers, like Compuscan and Status Credit Circle, helped to collect and record more than 13,000 credit histories on emerging construction sector businesses while training providers like Compuscan Academy delivered financial literacy workshops and support to these SMEs.

New products for SME lending were introduced by partner financial institutions, including rural finance, supply chain finance, trade finance and SME finance.

In a recent announcement by the IFC it was declared that as much as 11,300 small and medium sized businesses in South Africa have gained access to finance thanks to the SA SME Banking Program. This is a great achievement and has helped to create an environment that will support the growth of thousands more smaller businesses in the future.

Towards the end of 2008 and exactly 2 years into the implementation of the program the global financial crisis (“credit crunch”) hit the world’s economy, which initially seemed like it was going to put an enormous strain on the success of the program. However, with the support from all stakeholders and the solutions provided to the SMEs by the program, success was still achieved.

It is in this light that the IFC decided to host a forum on “Banking & Managing SMEs’ Risk” on the 10^th of July 2009 at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg to highlight the successes, achievements and obstacles faced during the implementation of the program to all stakeholders.

The forum brought a vast array of financial institutions, policy makers, business service providers (including credit bureaus & companies), SMEs and donors together.

Off course, Compuscan was there with Frank Lenisa, our Marketing Director, as a representative and speaker at the event. He delivered a presentation on “SME Credit Information” in which explained how Compuscan created a SME credit information database for the building and allied industry.

Overall, the forum was a great success and we are very proud to have taken part in such a prestigious program that contributed to the development of SMEs and South Africa in totality.