The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 women initiative in conjunction with Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility has given a credit line of 2.5 billion Kenyan shillings ($25 million) to Kenya’s Chase Bank to provide a collateral-free fund for women-owned small and medium scale businesses looking to expand.

Although, this fund requires no collateral, however, for a business to be eligible, it must have been in operation for a period of two years; must be 100% woman owned, or 51% shareholdings by a woman or in the case of more than 4 directors, the woman has at least 20% shareholdings. Also, such businesses/ business owner must’ve banked with Chase Bank for at least six months. This was revealed in a chat enterprise54.com had with Suzzane, a representative of Chase Bank. She said:

Holding an account puts interested participants in a better position as people without Chase Bank accounts won’t be considered. Also, such persons must’ve banked with us for at least six months to be eligible.

 

The amount of loan payable to individual ranges from 1million Ksh ($10,000) to 90 million Ksh ($1,000,000) with a 5-year repayment period and it is NOT open to non-Chase Bank customers.

This is not the first time Chase Bank will be in the spotlight of championing SME growth in Kenya, earlier this year, it launched the SME Biz Hub, a platform that provides advisory and networking as well as financial opportunities for entrepreneurs in Kenya.

The bank had in July 2015 at the Global Entrepreneur’s Summit announced that it will be committing over Ksh.60 Billion ($600M) over the next three years to lend to entrepreneurs in the Small and Medium Enterprise sector or SME with a bias to women and youth segments.

To date, Chase Bank Kenya has already lent 1 billion Kenya Shillings ($10 million) to women-owned SMEs, most of which have been through collateral-free loans.

In addition to the credit line to Chase Bank, the initiative will also provide beneficiaries with technical expertise, training, and networking opportunities.

“This partnership will ensure the women entrepreneurs benefit from financial advisory services that will positively impact their businesses and enable them to achieve what matters most to their businesses” Paul Njaga, CEO Chase Bank.

Interested entrepreneurs are advised to visit any branch of Chase Bank in their localities for more specification on application procedures.