Bank Alfalah has been able to establish strong ties with the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) over the past many years. However, until recently we joined hands with SMEDA’s Women Development Wing to organize a dedicated awareness session for women entrepreneurs in Lahore.
Our core objective was to spread awareness and provide handholding through our Non-financial Advisory Services Program and disseminate knowledge about SME financing to the thriving women business community.
Women Entrepreneurs hailing from various sectors were subsequently provided guidance on the SBP’s RF and credit guarantee scheme for Women Entrepreneurs and PM’s Kamyab Jawan Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme respectively.
Going forward, we aim to generate leads out of such interactive awareness sessions since the participants showed keen interest and are also linked to a credible authority like SMEDA.
Through the SME Toolkit, we have been able to increase our digital footprint which allows us to reach out to a greater audience.
In addition to the advisory content, we also ensure that all relevant information pertaining to our products is readily available on this platform and we also have managed to curate a system to receive web requests in case someone shows any interest in the said product.
Additionally, we regularly ensure to promote this platform through quarterly boosting on all our social media platforms.
Multiple social media campaigns have been held in the past and we look forward to curate one while keeping women financial inclusion at the heart of it.
CreditBook is a fintech rigorously working to build the tools for the digitization and financial inclusion of micro, small and medium business enterprises (MSMEs) in Pakistan. Their digital ledger app helps merchants digitize their bookkeeping and provides them with a free, secure and easy alternative to offline physical khatas and registers.
Currently, we are in the process of signing a MoU with CreditBook, to step into the untouched segment and reach out to a greater business community for both men and women-owned businesses.
By conducting market storming activities in collaboration with CreditBook, we shall be able to reach out to new markets and pitch our financial offerings, particularly the Prime Minister’s Kamyab Jawan Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (PMKJYES) and SAAF Scheme respectively.
Under the umbrella of our non-financial advisory services (NFAS) we shall also be developing advisory content for small and medium businesses which shall be deployed on our dedicated online portal i.e., Bank Alfalah’s SME Toolkit.
LadiesFund, a vehicle of Dawood Global Foundation (DGF) is an initiative to provide financial security to women and to promote and train women entrepreneurs. It aims to integrate the entrepreneurial needs based on the economic and social aspects of the local communities, with respect to greater women participation in the workforce.
Bank Alfalah participated in the ‘Loan Day for Women Entrepreneurs’ an event sponsored by SBP to promote financial inclusion of women for LadiesFund Members at the Buraq Center, Karachi earlier this year.
Women entrepreneurs associated with LadiesFund were facilitated in applying for financing through Bank Alfalah under SBP’s Refinance and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Women Entrepreneurs and PMKJYES.
We simplified the Loan Application Form under this scheme by taking the concerned stakeholders on board and translated it in Urdu as well for ease of understanding.
We intend to take forward this relationship and extend financing to the eligible women entrepreneurs associated with LadiesFund.
Collaboration with Greenstar is a work in progress where our aim is to reach out to this segment and extend financing to low-end health workers associated with Greenstar.
This would allow us to enter into a new streamline and target the women associated in this line of business.
Under SBP’s National Literacy Program, we have been able to conduct numerous awareness programs to reach out to the masses.
In the past, we have also conducted dedicated sessions exclusively for women engaged in livestock and dairy farming and we aim to plan such sessions ahead pan Pakistan.
Our aim is to facilitate these women and brief them on the various avenues available for them to access finance.
Mera Kaam, Meri Pehchaan is another such initiative in the works where we are extending finance to women Agri-customers.
Promoting cluster/group financing under this initiative is a more viable approach to extend financing to farming/non-farming women entrepreneurs on social guarantee.
Conducting awareness programs in liaison with Agri & veterinary universities for capacity building, particularly to students of food technology and veterinary services to cater to Agri based SMEs.
SheMeansBusiness Growth Workshops are a project of Facebook, in partnership with i2i and the Ministry of Commerce’s (MoC’s) Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) committee.
The project is designed with a cohort model for women entrepreneurs who have gone through one of the preliminary Facebook trainings through SheMeansBusiness. The goal of the project is to provide additional knowledge and resources to these selected women entrepreneurs who have a vision for business growth.
Bank Alfalah is participating in the SheMeansBusiness Workshops and placing a virtual banking booth where the idea is to give the women entrepreneurs a chance to get a better understanding of what the bank has to offer in terms of support for their business and personal financing and how they can avail these services.
These workshops shall allow us to establish direct contact with women entrepreneurs from the e-commerce industry who are actively looking to expand their business.
To promote financial inclusion, we are working on an initiative with the Presidential Secretariat to extend financing to leads routed via President’s office.
Under this initiative, financing shall be extended to both men and women, under PMKJYES and Refinance & Credit Guarantee Scheme for Women Entrepreneurs respectively.
For this, a framework is currently in the works so that the turnaround times (TATs) can be reduced to facilitate overall processing.
