Ecobank in partnership with the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD has launched a digital pan-African MSME Academy.

The bank said this in a statement entitled, ‘Ecobank Nigeria empowers small businesses, as AUDA-NEPAD partners Ecobank Group to launch MSME Academy.”

During the launch, the Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan, said the academy provided easy access to practical training and resources on financing opportunities in various countries, how to build a digital presence for businesses and how to adapt business operations in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said, “As an MSME-friendly bank, we have been helping them with capacity building, providing simple and easy access to loans in various sectors including agriculture, creative industry, healthcare and commerce, amongst others; access to markets via our e-commerce solutions and simple but robust digital platforms for collections and payments.

“We have also provided a channel to enable MSMEs to open various accounts via self-service on our webpage.”

According to him, MSMEs are the drivers of post-COVID-19 economic recovery for Nigeria, and the subsector should take advantage of technology, financial services, and support from the government to drive the survival and growth of their businesses.

Also speaking, the Director, Programme Delivery and Coordination, AUDA-NEPAD, Amine Adoum, explained that the MSME Academy aimed to build the capacities of MSMEs across Africa through a combination of relevant content library, a network of institutions specialised in MSME support such as incubators and accelerators, and a community of peers, mentors and advisors.

He noted that the key objective of the academy was to radically expand access to finance by aggregating smaller financial institutions such as micro-credit institutions and credit unions that have access to micro-enterprises, standardizing their processes, and building trust in their capabilities.

He said the MSME digital platform was a one-stop-shop for all MSMEs across Africa to access all these three programmes which jointly address MSMEs’ challenges with access to capacity building, markets, and capital.