If you are in the agribusiness sector, it could be easy to assume that you do not have the same level of access to financing and financial-related support as would be any other ordinary entrepreneur. In many instances, this might actually be a valid concern.
However, if you are in the agribusiness sector, there are financial agribusiness solutions that you can tap into. Five of the best solutions are offered by the Co-operative Bank of Kenya. These five agribusiness solutions include:
1). Accounts: To reap the maximum benefits from the bank’s bouquet of agribusiness solutions, it is essential that you should open an account. Interestingly, the bank has designed accounts that will suit the varying needs of different clients within the agricultural sector. “Our accounts are available in all the major currencies. Through these accounts, you have access to banking and financing solutions that will allow you to make and receive payments seamlessly at your convenience,” the Co-operative Bank states.
2). Working capital: The bank has developed customized solutions that are designed to ensure that Kenyans in the agribusiness sector are able to meet their financing needs for their inventories, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and cash. Some of the available solutions that you can get to boost up your working capital include overdraft, short term loans, supply chain financing, distributor financing, invoice discounting, asset financing, letters of credit, bank guarantees and LPO financing.
3). Cash management: The Co-operative Bank has designed account management services payment, and collections and reconciliation solutions that enables farmers to process and receive all their transactions conveniently and efficiently. These solutions include;
i). Collection solutions
ii). Payment solutions
iii). Operational account
iv). Investment solutions
4). Trade finance: The end goal of every farmer is to see their produce reach the market at the right time for maximum return on investment. To get this edge often requires trade finance. Interestingly, the bank’s agricultural sector solutions will support inputs, production, storage , processing, value addition and marketing of goods. This is not just restricted to farm produce alone. It is also available to traders of farm inputs.
Take stock finance for example. The bank is currently providing stock financing, a trade solution that is designed to enable a trader to acquire stock for the business, pay for the various products they trade with and ease pressure on their working capital, pay for the stocks on time to ensure consistency and avoid stock outs, minimize diversion since payment is against invoices and made directly to the suppliers, and align financing with the trading cycle of the business hence ease of repayment.
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5). Financing: Co-op Bank has at least eight different loans that have been tailor-made to suit each farmer’s needs according to the type of farming the farmer is engaged in. This means that a farmer who is involved in dairy farming will be adequately accommodated just as a farmer who is involved with watermelon farming.
The loans you can access include dairy farming loans, coffee farming loans, cotton farming loans, cereal farmers loans, tea farmers loans, horticulture and floriculture loans, agri-mechanization loans, and and insurance premium financing.