Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) run by women have received financial education and training from Ecobank Ghana to handle important day-to-day financial issues including bookkeeping, basic accounting, budgeting, savings, and investments.

The seminar was held to commemorate the bank’s annual flagship CSR initiative, 'Ecobank Day', which aims to give back to the communities where it lives, works, and serves.

The focus of this year’s Ecobank Day, according to Ecobank Ghana’s Managing Director, Dan Sackey, is to increase financial literacy and financial inclusion, especially for women and young people in underserved communities.

According to him, financial inclusion means having access to practical and reasonably priced financial products and services, such as payments, savings, loans for individuals and small businesses, and insurance, to satisfy one’s requirements.

“We take financial inclusion and financial literacy very seriously because we understand that they can change people’s lives. We are determined to help raise financial literacy, which in turn will drive financial inclusion in our local communities.”

“Ecobank Ghana is committed to playing an important role in our communities as a meaningful contribution to the development of the African continent, in line with our overall corporate vision”, he said.

He continued by saying that financial inclusion and financial knowledge were crucial enablers for lowering poverty and increasing prosperity.

He said the Ecobank family in Ghana hosted four simultaneous events in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, and Tamale to provide people in the SME sector with information and skills to handle their finances properly as part of the bank’s commitment to lowering these numbers.

Dr. Edward Nartey Botchway, Executive Director and Head of Consumer Banking, Ecobank Ghana, revealed that the training was conducted concurrently in all 33 African nations where the bank has operations under the same theme of “Financial Inclusion For All; Leave No One Behind” throughout the continent.

According to him, it won’t be a one-time thing, and Ecobank would keep working with the participants to help them improve their circumstances in the small and medium-scale enterprise sector by using the knowledge and skills they learned through the program.

“Without properly documenting and tracking what you are doing, it is impossible to determine how well your firm is performing. Because of it, we consider this training to be important,” he stated