The need to increase the opportunities for women-led businesses to access new markets, increase profit and expand their businesses has remained an important focus for Access Bank through its women’s market program – the W Initiative. The W Initiative is the platform for everything the Bank has to offer women across all career and life stages. In fulfilling this objective, the Bank has partnered with foremost Nigerian female entrepreneur and business strategist, Nelly Agbogu to organise the 5th edition of the Naija Brand Chick Trade Fair. The two-day fair, is scheduled to hold at La Madison Place, Lekki, Lagos on April 9th and 10th 2022 and is expected to drive over 20,000 visitors with hundreds of female entrepreneurs exhibiting their products and services during the fair. As part of the Bank’s commitment to investing in women-owned businesses, all female businesses affiliated with the fair would be given free capacity building training sessions to equip their financial literacy and build business competencies. Access Bank has been a strong supporter of the Naija Brand Chick Trade Fair having served as the exclusive financial partner and headline sponsor of the Fair since 2019.
Speaking on the importance of Access to Market for female entrepreneurs, Abiodun Olubitan, Group Head, Women Banking said “at Access Bank, we understand the importance of contributing to the growth of the economy by providing business yielding opportunities for women-owned businesses. We believe in the vision of today’s female entrepreneur, and we are willing to help her grow. Accessing new markets is one of our growth strategies and this partnership has indeed contributed to scores of women entrepreneurs expanding their profit and business portfolio through physical trade exhibitions and fairs. Through the W Initiative, women-owned businesses across Africa can now access business growth opportunities through discounted financing such as the W Power Loan and capacity building programs like the Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton and IFC certified Mini MBA.”
According to Ayodele Olojede, Group Head of Emerging Businesses, “supporting MSMEs’ growth and development is a core proposition for the Bank as we understand their contribution to the economy in terms of GDP and Employment. However, we also know the challenges business owners face and we have developed our proposition to alleviate the constraints. Furthermore, we have also digitised this solution to ensure that we can cater to the vast majority of MSMEs. Some of these innovations include our online account opening platform for businesses, digital lending platform, Digital payment solution platform (Swiftpay), Access to market (Discounted Website), and our capacity-building programs Access Bank continues to reiterate its commitment to support women and contribute to the growth of the women businesses in Nigeria.
