SMEs showed the ropes
Bank Windhoek’s Business Banking is committed to proactively engaging with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through information-sharing sessions demonstrating the bank’s commitment to economic growth and stability.Bank Windhoek’s Manager of Emerging SME, Jenevieve Swartz, made this statement during the bank’s SME information session hosted in Windhoek last week. This session was a follow-up to the first-ever Micro-Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME) Finance Symposium that took in Windhoek in April – a collaboration between Bank Windhoek and the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB).
More than 20 entrepreneurs with formally registered businesses and actively operating for at least six months attended the session. They represented various sectors: education, beauty, retail, renewable energy, and telecommunications.
Swartz said that the sessions aim to engage with the SMEs to better understand the challenges they face and how the Bank could assist in addressing these challenges.
The session was also attended by representatives from the Business and Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA), who presented and informed the attendees on the functions of BIPA, including the processes and requirements for registering various entities.
BIPA’s Manager of Marketing and Corporate Communication, Shariva Zender, said she was delighted to have the opportunity to empower the MSME sector with the much-needed resources required to succeed.
Bank Windhoek’s Business Banking I-Lounge Team presented the various bank products, including lending and transactional, available to SMEs and highlighted the banks’ lending criteria. “The goal is to get them to a point where they can access the bank’s lending products, enabling them to grow their businesses sustainably,” said Swartz, who highlighted that financial institutions like bank Windhoek are highly regulated organisations, entrusted to safeguard depositor’s funds, and always ensuring prudent lending.
Two well-established SMEs, Nel’s Babies & Kiddies and Ilotu Investments, shared words of encouragement with the attendees, providing them with a raw and unfiltered version of what it takes to run a successful business. They shared their real-life challenges and successes, encouraging their fellow SMEs to persist in their pursuit of being successful entrepreneurs, albeit with limited resources.
“It was important for us to convey the message that the SMEs should realise that there is great power in starting small, with the resources that they have available,” concluded Swartz.
The next Bank Windhoek SME information session takes place on Wednesday, 26 and Thursday, 27 July 2023, in Oshakati and Ondangwa, respectively.