With a worryingly growing trend of business closures owing to the volatile economic situation in the country, Bank of Africa last week came out with a program to sensitize Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) owners on sustaining business growth.
Currently, Uganda’s economy is operating below potential, with growth projections of 4.5 percent while the inflation is at 6.4 percent.
The shilling has continuously depreciated, with the dollar rate standing at 3640/ 3620, the CBR at 11 percent and the interest rate at 22.69 percent.
Director, Bernard R. Magulu, Bank of Africa’s Executive Director while meeting with the SME owners last Thursday, advised that the best way to thrive in the current tough economic situation is by building proper financial discipline as well as understanding their business.
“SME owners must know their business; we need to extend money to them for a business they understand, that will give both of us confidence that they can manage their business as well as servicing the loans rendered to them,” Magulu said.
“We are trying to make sure that financing is availed to SME in a timely fashion which will help their business go a long way; we are giving a guarantee of 48 hours response to their loan request.”
Magulu added that Bank of Africa has provided additional products to customers and these are aimed at bringing services closer to them and making sure they avail finances in a timely fashion which will enable them grow their business as fast as possible.
The Bank’s new quick financial solutions for business growth include; unsecured bid guarantee, unsecured invoice discounting, business finance loan and asset finance loan.
“Certainly all this will help reduce on the time in which customers will be able to access a business loan from our brunches.”