Grace Anim-Yeboah addressing the participants
BARCLAYS BANK Ghana
says it is working to become the lead financial enabler for business activities
of small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana by 2020 when it transitions to
Absa.
The bank said
with the coming of Absa, it would engage SMEs in a more dynamic way in
providing relevant and tailor-made solutions at
the right time and in the right structure.
Grace Elizabeth
Anim-Yeboah, an official of the bank’s Business Banking Directorate, who
disclosed this, was speaking at the bank’s 7th SME Clinic held at
its Spintex Branch in Accra recently. She said the bank was poised to become
the number one bank for SMEs and sees itself as the best financial enabler for
the sector.
“As your
financial enabler, Barclays wants to be the lead partner for SME growth in
Ghana as we become Absa by providing the right financial and operational
support. We believe that SMEs of today can easily become the multinationals of
tomorrow,” Mrs Anim-Yeboah told participants at the clinic.
She added that
SMEs form a core part of the bank’s business and these capacity building
engagements are to help SME clients improve their business processes, implement
good corporate governance structures, improve customer service, instill
excellent human resource management practices and have better access to credit.
The SME clinic
was attended by over 60 clients who were taken through a series of sessions
including credit sanctioning, fraud alerts, forex trading and company succession
plan, among others.
They were also
introduced to the bank’s various products and services such as Digital Banking,
Mobile Money Collection Solution and Barclays Business Club – all developed for
their benefit.
The Barclays SME
Clinic has been designed to help SME clients to benefit from the bank’s
tailor-made capacity building programme aimed at educating and supporting SMEs
in running a sound and sustainable business. It also creates a platform for the
clients to interact directly with officials of the bank.
So far, over 400 SMEs have benefitted from the SME clinics in 2019.
A business desk report
