Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) is a privately-owned financial services provider and country’s largest economy in the East African Community, headquartered in Nairobi Kenya. What’s more, they have announced last year (October 2017) that they are going to be prioritizing their investments on small to medium-sized businesses.

“The funding will be geared towards helping finance small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and local corporates involved in value-addition,” said AfDB. That’s right, Commercial Bank of Africa “has secured a Sh9.297 billion ($90 million) facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB) for on-lending” towards this growth. 

The deal was signed on October 5th that same year [2017] and according to the latest data from the Central Bank of Kenya, the facility (in some sectors) is targeting firms that have experienced a recent drop in credit. In addition, CBA will also be extending their funds to companies in manufacturing, trade, infrastructure, agriculture, construction, and transport.

“About $50 million (Sh5.17 billion) of the cash is in the form of a line of credit, while the remainder $40 million (Sh4.13 billion) has been committed under the Trade Finance Line of Credit (TFLoC).” Owing to the new rule by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9, effective from January, required all “lenders to set aside cash for expected rather than incurred (which they already do under CBK’s prudential guidelines) credit loss based on historical loan performance data.” 

Nonetheless, these are very good news and a sign of progress.

Your move.