Kenya: Ecobank Kenya Unveils Program to Support Women Entrepreneurs

Ecobank Kenya has launched a flagship program that aims to empower and support women-led businesses.

Dubbed ‘Ellevate’, the program is designed for businesses owned by women, businesses managed by women, businesses with a high percentage of female board members or employees and companies that manufacture products for women.

Ellevate aims to offer both financial and value-added solutions to the Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) owned by women to help them achieve their full potential as women in Africa have faced the challenge of accessing high-quality financial services which hinders the growth of their businesses.

Speaking during the launch, Ecobank Kenya Managing Director (MD) Cheikh Travaly noted that the program will address the various impediments women-focused businesses have faced including access to finance.

“We have specially designed Ellevate to meet the needs of women entrepreneurs through the provision of comprehensive, customized and tailor-made solutions which include favourable lending rates, smart cash management enablement and a suite of value-added services such as leadership training, mentoring and networking opportunities,” said Travaly.

The bank MD further stated that the women-led businesses, through the programme, will become both scalable and sustainable as they are largely underserved.

The lender will also allocate a minimum of 10 per cent of its loan portfolio to women’s businesses.

The programme was first launched by Ecobank Group in 2020 and has extended $208million (Sh25.13billion) in loans and has attracted $337.7million (Sh40.81billion) in deposits.

Moreover, it has created an average of between 90,000 to 150,000 jobs across Africa in sectors such as education, agribusiness, hospitality, retail and distributorship since its inception.

Ellevate has also won several awards such as Best New Product Launch of the Year 2021 (Middle East & Africa Retail Banking Innovation Awards), Impact Award 2021 (Financial Alliance for Women) and Outstanding Crisis Finance Innovation Award 2021 (Global Finance Innovators Awards).