Barclays Bank Ghana, part of the Absa family marked this year’s World SME Day in Tamale with a commitment of increasing its support for small and medium enterprises in the country.

Barclays, a leading bank in providing financing for SMEs in Ghana, marked the day with a special SME clinic for businesses in Northern Ghana. This was to help them benefit from the Bank’s tailor-made capacity building programme aimed at educating and supporting SMEs in running a sound and sustainable business.

The World SME Day is a United Nations recognized day to raise public awareness about the contribution of small medium enterprises to sustainable development. The UN General Assembly, recognizing the importance of SMEs, decided to declare June 27th the Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day. The Day was first celebrated in 2017.

Speaking to participants, the Business Banking Director at Barclays Bank Ghana, Mrs. Grace Anim-Yeboah said SMEs form a core part of the Bank’s business and these capacity building engagements are to help SME clients improve their business processes, implement good corporate governance structures, improve customer service, instill excellent human resource management practices and have better access to credit.

“We are commited to helping SMEs to grow and achieve their business goals. This is why we continue to provide the necessary support and financing to enable them to succeed,” Mrs. Anim-Yeboah said.

“As we move into a highly digitized banking environment, we will lead and help you to make the right digital choices that will impact positively on your growth. We are your trusted financial partner you can always rely on for the best solutions designed to serve your best interest,” she added.

Ms Nana Essilfuah Boison, Marketing and Corporate Relations Director used the occasion to update partcipants on the bank’s transition to Absa, and the opportunities the change presented to customers and all other stakeholders of the bank.

The Tamale SME clinic is the sixth to have been organized by the Bank and close to 400 SMEs have benefitted.

Beneficiary SMEs were also taken through a series of sessions including Group Imports, Credit Sanctioning, Fraud Alerts and Forex Trading among others. They were also introduced to the bank’s various products and services developed for their benefit. Among the new products and services for businesses are Digital Banking, Mobile Money Collection Solution and Barclays Business Club.

Last year, the Barclays SME clinics supported more than 750 clients with various capacity building programmes and this year many more are expected to benefit from it.