This new agreement will allow BGFIBank Group to accelerate access to financing for its SME customers.
The BGFIBank Group and the African Guarantee Fund (AGF) Group on Friday in Libreville signed a portfolio guarantee line for a total amount of 50 million Euros (over 32 billion CFA francs), intended to cover credits allocated to African Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
This new agreement will enable BGFIBank, which is present in several financial businesses and has a strong pan-African presence through its various subsidiaries, to accelerate access to financing for SME clients, a real lever for the development of African economies.
The partnership agreement was signed by Henri-Claude Oyima, Chairman and CEO of the BGFIBank Group and Jules NGankam, CEO of the African Guarantee Fund Group, in the presence of the two companies’ top management.
For the BGFIBank Group, this partnership is in line with the ambitions of its Dynamique 2025 business plan, which advocates, among other things, financial inclusion, which implies increasing the SME segment in the overall credit portfolio.
“A vector of development and added value for the African continent, the growth of a solid and prosperous SME fabric constitutes an opportunity for us,” said Henri-Claude Oyima. According to him, this opportunity inevitably requires the implementation of synergies between reference partners in order to overcome the challenges posed by the financing of this specific clientele.
“The partnership we are entering into today with AGF opens a new era in many respects,” concluded the Chairman and CEO of the BGFIBank Group.
For his part, Mr. NGankam, welcomed the consolidation of the relationship between the two groups in favour of SMEs in Africa.
“The AGF Group and the BGFIBank Group have been working together for eight years and this new agreement shows our willingness to continue to support SMEs, which are major players in job creation in Africa,” he explained, stressing that “we consider women’s entrepreneurship as a pillar of economic growth.”
“Thus, thanks to the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth programme, implemented by AGF in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB), the subsidiaries of the BGFIBank Group will support women entrepreneurship SMEs with more advantageous conditions,” concluded Mr. NGankam.
PIG/ls/lb/abj/APA