UT Bank plans bigger support for SMEs

Mr. Paul Ababio, the Head of Strategy at UT Bank, has said the Bank would soon launch a new product for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The new product is aimed at providing multi-factorial variables to enhance assessment of credit worthiness of SMEs and allow the Bank to provide added insight to its SME clients on how to improve their credit portfolios.

In a statement sent to the Ghana News Agency on Friday, Mr Ababio reiterated the Bank’s commitment towards the continual organisation of clinics for SMEs to provide them with more tactical advice on how to operate successful businesses.

“UT Bank reinforced its commitment to empowering SMEs by promising to organise more clinics in the future to provide tactical advice for SMEs.”

He said the Bank would continue to demonstrate strong partnerships in the country to maintain its position as the leading SME centric bank in Ghana.

He said the organisation of SME Clinic was to reinforce UT Bank’s commitment to understand the needs of customers and to develop innovative solutions which reinforces their quest to do more.

The maiden UT Bank SME Clinic, held under the theme ‘Funding Your Business - Strategies, Options and Considerations, brought together industry players, financial experts and entrepreneurs to explore solutions for business financing and strategies towards improving their businesses.

Mr. Stephen Antwi-Asimeng, Chief Executive Officer, UT Bank lauded the contributions of the SME towards the Ghanaian economy as it had been proven to contribute 70 per cent of the nation’s annual Gross Domestic Product.

“As UT Bank's core area is SME, we have come to understand that they usually need a lot more than financing and that is why we have assembled some of the best SME minds to teach us how to unravel some of the problems,” he added.

Mr. Sampson Agkligoh, Managing Director of InvestCorp, an Investment Bank providing services in Asset Management, Research and Corporate Finance, also urged SMEs to have proper management systems in place while taking tax planning seriously.

"If you have your management in place, and you run your business well, banks are willing to help," said Akligoh who also stressed “the need for SMEs to desist from taking short-term loans from banks to develop long-term projects.”

Another keynote speaker, Mr. Richard Siaw, a Senior Investment Officer at private equity firm Oasis Capital also outlined alternative sources of funding for SMEs stating that “the SME sector is an engine of growth in any economy, but in the absence of financial access, it cannot be developed.”

He said Oasis Capital provided risk capital in the form of equity, quasi-equity and profit-sharing facilities to entrepreneurial businesses in Ghana and throughout Africa.