The Ghana commercial bank, GCB has committed GH¢1 billion towards the 'One District One Factory' initiative by the government.

About 270 clients have already put in their applications awaiting review for support under the programme.

Head of SME and One District One factory of GCB, George Fuachie said the bank has signed an agreement with investment initiative, Invest In Africa, to further facilitate credit access to SMEs in Ghana.

In an exclusive interview with JoyBusiness, Mr Fuachie said, “GCB has committed a minimum of GH¢1 billion to the One District, One Factory initiative rolled up by the government and as the biggest indigenous bank the board, the management and the staff found it necessary to commit that to it.” 

GCB, Invest In Africa agreement

The year-long agreement between GCB and Invest In Africa (IIA) formally makes GCB the newest partner of the initiative.

According to Mr Fuachie, joining the Invest In Africa initiative will further reinforce GCB Bank’s commitment to making a positive difference by supporting the growth of local businesses especially SMEs.

He added, “The SME’s department has existed in various shades and forms but there is now a strategic intent to it to become the core of the bank.  

So it is a new journey, a journey that comes with a lot of experience but obviously, the partnership will bring to the fore the knowledge-based that Invest In Africa has based on the experience with SME’s and that partnership is what I believe would change the engagement with the SME’s.”

With over 1500 SMEs in IIA’s pool, GCB hopes to expand their customer base for a relatively improved quality base.
 
Currently, GCB has embarked on a five-year strategic plan and some of the key areas include an intention to expand the bank's customer base.

One of the key areas under 2018, 2022 strategic plan is the expansion SME space which is also a key of area of interest for IIA.

“Invest in Africa has a pool of SMEs clients who have been scaled up and developed up to a certain level so, their attractiveness in terms of purposes of lending is much better than the off shelve SME client”. Mr George Fuachie alluded.

He said, “there are so many challenges facing the SME sector and GCB haven learnt of these have redefined the approach to dealing with them and I believe the partnership will bring value to what we have.
 
Aside from lending to them, we will also provide advisory services to them because in fact some of them don’t actually need facilities but succession plan and differentiation between ownership and management.”
 
“A lot of these are laudable and a lot more need to be improved so the partnership will help some of these institutions in areas where we find it difficult to help them,” he said.

The partnership will also explore how SMEs shortlisted by GCB Bank for the One District One Factory (1D1F).

Being the largest indigenous financial institution in Ghana with 180+branches, the bank says IIA registered SMEs will benefit from short-to-medium term capital to enable them service tenders.

Launched in September 2014 in Ghana, IIA has registered over 1500 SMEs facilitated credit access of US$973K and tenders won valued at $97.1M.

Large companies and organizations already supporting the initiative include Tullow Ghana, MODEC, Newmont Mining, Ecobank Ghana, Societe Generale, Ghana, Guinness Ghana Breweries, Africa Development Bank
(AfDB) and Multimedia Group.