Equity Bank Group has announced it has received commitments worth over Sh52 billion ($525 million) from different institutions as part of the just concluded Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
The billions will be loaned out to small and medium enterprises as well as youth and women as per the aspirations and objectives of Barack Obama-led GES initiative. Out of these commitments, Sh20 billion was from the independent US government agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic), Sh15 billion from the African Development Bank, Sh10 billion from International Finance Corporation and Sh7.5 billion from the European Investment Bank.
The bank has in addition announced that it is setting aside Ksh400 billion in the next three and five years to lend to the same group of entrepreneurs. This, according to Group Chief Executive Officer James Mwangi, translates into Sh13 billion of loans to SMEs every month. Speaking during an interview yesterday, Mr Mwangi (pictured) said the objective is to support the scaling up of the small businesses to become regionally and globally competitive.
As part of this commitment, he disclosed, Equity Bank has already trained over 1.3 million women and young people in financial literacy through the Equity Foundation. The bank has also trained 12,000 micro-businesses in entrepreneurship.
“We expect the impact to be job and wealth creation,” Mwangi said of the commitments, adding that the bank also made a killing processing payments for hotels as well as the fuelling of the ‘the Beast’, through American Express cards.
During the visit by first sitting US leader, commitments worth over Sh100 billion to youth and women businesses were made. Kenya banks have also joined in the fray and have started massive funding for the youth and women. For instance, Chase Bank has set aside Sh65 billion while Kenya Commercial Bank has committed Sh1 billion through the Enterprise Kenya Fund. During the summit, the energy sector also got a big boost after the Government signed a Sh220 billion deal with American firm, SkyPower.
