The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is extending $370,000 (Sh47.6 million) worth of advisory support to the Co-operative Bank of Kenya to help advance its lending to women-led businesses.
The support programme started at the beginning of last month and follows a recently disdosed Sh18 billion onward lending facility that Co-op Bank received from the IFC to increase its lending to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
IFC, the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, expects both the loan and the capacity support to improve Co-op Bank’s lending to women-led MSMEs as a key development objective.
Co-op Bank is one of the top beneficiaries of IFC’s lending to local commercial banks for MSME lending products. Others that have benefitted from similar support are KCB, I&M Bank, Diamond Trust Bank, and Equity Bank Kenya.
Before the recently disdosed financing agreement, IFC’s latest funding to Co-op Bank was in 2020, when it gave the lender Sh9.7 billion also for lending to MSMEs. This time, however, IFC wants the bank to focus more on women-led small businesses.
In a recent disdosure about the latest lending agreement, IFC said that the most significant expected outcome of the new loan is boosting credit access particularly for women-owned MSMEs in Kenya.
Co-op Bank’s lending to MSMEs last year stood at Sh18.1 billion, but the bank did not disdose specifically the share that was lent out to women over the period.
With the new programme, IFC will have embarked on a total of 68 advisory projects in Kenya, some of which have lapsed. Besides Co-op Bank, it has an existing advisory programme with Absa Bank Kenya on climate finance, and with the entire financial industry for reporting of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues.
