The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, will conduct a series of workshops to help the domestic banking sector expand access to finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
In this regard, the two institutions have also launched a series of publications for the bankers, said SBP in a released statement. SBP and IFC have produced a series of booklets about the ways banks can increase lending to small and medium enterprises.
These booklets, which cover ten sectors including agriculture, education and logistics, are aimed at helping the banks in creating better and low-cost product programs that will enable small businesses to obtain more financing and expand their operations.
These booklets, available on the SBP website, follow a study conducted by SBP and IFC in Pakistan that included the participation of the top 16 commercial banks and over 300 interviews of small businesses in 10 sectors.
Each booklet includes an industry overview and chapters on market assessment, risk assessment, financial benchmarking, proposed banking products for the sector, and guidance on how these products could be channeled and distributed. On the completion of the survey, SBP and IFC held a workshop for banks at Karachi wherein the surveying consultants shared key features and findings of the Project with the participating banks.
State Bank of Pakistan Deputy GovernorYaseen Anwar, who presided over the workshop, while stressing the importance and significance of the exercise emphasised upon the banks to make maximum use of the findings of the survey.
