Events
Feb
20
SME FINANCE FORUM
WebEx
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2020-02-18 19:00:00
2020-02-18 19:00:00
Members Only Webinar - Digital Banking Solutions Series on Platforms - Part I
The SME Finance Forum is hosting a two-session webinar series on Digital Banking Solutions, the first on platforms and the second on automation. Digitalization has led to disruption in banking, challenging conventional practices, opening up many new partnership opportunities and making it possible for new entrants to provide innovative products and services at a lower cost to the customer. In this series, we will be looking at some of the most important new digital models and how banks and financial institutions can utilize data, analytics, and partnerships, to incorporate innovative SME finance products and redesign traditional business models.
Part One: Platforms in SME Banking
Much hoopla is accompanying concepts such as "open banking" and "bank-fintech partnerships". What is less discussed is how difficult it is for many financial institutions to connect to fintechs and realize the potential of new solutions. Most banks still remain dependent on their IT departments and resources, which is why many banks fear that digitalization will lead to even greater dominance of the finance industry by a few large players. It is also why even smaller countries are fearful as their regulators have fewer resources to learn about and figure out how to govern financial technologies. Therefore, many are excited about platforms being created to facilitate bank-fintech interaction, providing a common utility that reduces costs of learning and testing.
In this session we will hear from AFIN and API Exchange (APIX), the world’s first cross-border, open architecture API marketplace and sandbox platform for collaboration between fintechs and financial institutions, and a partner bank that has successfully utilized these platforms, and from UnionBank of the Philippines. They will discuss the benefits of platform-based banking increased flexibility, increased personalization and cross-industry collaboration as well as some of risk surrounding data sharing and how to prevent unintended data sharing.
Speakers
Matthew Saal is the Head of Digital Finance, Financial Institutions Group at IFC. Previously, he was the Associate Director in the Local Currency and Capital Markets Development initiative of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He previously covered banks, non-bank financial institutions, and equity funds as sector coordinator for financial institutions in the Office of the Chief Economist. Matthew contributed to initiatives on mobile money and SME finance as part of broader financial infrastructure and financial access investment programs, has advised the African Development Bank on initiatives and partnerships in digital financial services, and is involved in sourcing and vetting potential financial technology investments. Prior to joining EBRD in 2010, Matthew worked in emerging markets finance, private equity, venture capital, strategy and business development, consulting, and international economics. Matthew has had a longstanding focus on financial services and financial technology. Matthew has written on banking, macroeconomic policy, financial systems structure, trade, and monetary policy instruments. He holds an A.B. in Chemistry from Princeton and an M.Phil. in Economics from Oxford, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.
Manish Diwaan is the Managing Director of ASEAN Financial Innovation Network - AFIN. He joined AFIN in July 2019 and is responsible for developing and implementing the overall strategy of AFIN. Manish has nearly 20 years of experience working in the Financial services industry in India and Vietnam. Starting from GE in the year 2000, to Western Union in 2007 to setting up India business of Vodafone mPesa in 2008 and Reliance ePay in 2013. In his last assignment in Vietnam, Manish was instrumental in setting a digital only bank. Manish has expertise in multiple aspects of new age digital business including Product Management, Strategy, Marketing and Business Development. Manish has completed his Executive Program in Management from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 2011 and BA Degree from IIHM Aurangabad in 1999.
Pieter Franken is a Director at AFIN/AFIX. His career spans over 25 years in Financial Services, specializing in O&T, Fintech, innovation and large-scale transformations. He has held C-level and executive positions with industry leaders such as Citigroup, Shinsei Bank, Aplus, Monex Securities and Monex Group. His hallmark is pioneering innovative services by embracing bleeding edge technologies while minimizing time-to-market and dramatically reducing costs. Well versed in large scale IT transformation, bi-modal management, innovation, software development, datacenter operations, financial operations and FinTech. He’s a much looked after advisor and expert speaker on a wide range of topics and is known for providing deep insights pulling from is wide experience in IT, financial services, and innovation management. In Japan, Pieter is Advisor to Monex Group (a leading global, online financial services company) where he focuses on the Future of Financial Services, Global Fintech, and technology trends and is Vice-Chair of the Alternate Investments Committee (AIC) of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ). In Singapore, Pieter serves as a member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) International Technology Advisory Panel (ITAP) where he contributes to the transformation of Singapore into a leading Fintech Hub and is a Director at AFIN, a MAS/ABA/IFC cofounded initiative to accelerate Financial Inclusion across Asia and the Middle East. In the startup space, Pieter is involved with ModuleQ.AI (a Silicon Valley AI startup), EmeradaCo.com (an Open Banking FinTech in Tokyo) among others In 2011, in the aftermath of the Fukushima Nuclear disaster, Pieter co-founded Safecast.org – a global volunteer initiative to collect citizen sourced environmental data. Safecast today is recognized by Nature Magazine, Poplar Mechanics and many global experts as the leading citizen science project. Pieter holds a MSc in Computer Science from Delft University (The Netherlands) and currently is an Affiliated Researcher with MIT Media Lab (US) and Guest Professor at Keio University (Japan) where he contributes to the advancement in IoT, Digital Currencies, Block-chain technologies, Medical Inclusion and Citizen Science.
Ricardo Jose "Dodge" V. Ronquillo is currently the Head of FinTech Synergies & Integrations in the FinTech team of UnionBank of the Philippines. He comes from a diverse background of both corporate and startup companies in gaming, HR tech, telco, and banking. In those companies, he has had over a decade of experience in various roles: Product Development, Product Management, QA Management, and Business Development and Partnerships. He has led partnerships that led to new product offerings to new markets and grew users for both partners. Dodge has a degree in Psychology from De La Salle-University but is adept in code and web design.
Read a recap of this webinar here.
For more information, please contact: Jessica Alfaro
WebEx
SME FINANCE FORUM
ronyg@panapps.co
America/New_York
public
Jan
20
SME FINANCE FORUM
WebEx
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2020-01-28 19:00:00
2020-01-28 19:00:00
Members Only Webinar - Managing SME Banking in challenging conditions
In challenging economic conditions, SMEs are key to supporting livelihoods and creating jobs, and may even support efforts to address the root causes of the difficult conditions themselves. Although small businesses may be contributors to a country’s resilience, they’re often the first to be cut off when macro-conditions deteriorate and lending to SME may be even further constrained. In this webinar, we will hear from member FDI and Quds Bank who have been on the front lines of this challenge, drawing lessons from these their experiences on how to manage SME banking during these times. The speakers will discuss the specific challenges for serving SMEs in this setting, share tools for risk mitigation around lending to small enterprises, and other strategies for supporting and managing SME banking in fragile economic conditions.
Speakers
Vanessa Bastien Joseph
Born in the United States but raised in Haiti, Vanessa Bastien Joseph holds a Bachelor's degree in Languages from Florida International University and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) with a concentration in Finance from Colorado Technical University.
In 2010, she began her career at JPMorgan Chase Bank as a Personal Banker. Upon returning to her home country of Haiti in 2011, she has worked at Capital Bank and Banque de l'Union Haïtienne as a Senior Corporate Loan Officer. In 2018, she joined the Fonds de Développement Industriel (FDI), a division of Haiti’s Central Bank as an Assistant Director and Project Coordinator.
Vanessa Bastien Joseph is a rigorous professional with eight years of experience in the banking/finance industry. She always attends seminars in her field. To further her knowledge, she has enrolled in the Master of Professional Accounting Program at the University of Miami in January 2019.
Bartol Letica
Bartol is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist in the International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s Advisory Services team for Sub-Saharan Africa, leading a number of credit infrastructure projects in the region including in Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia and Somalia. He is also the focal point for fragile and conflict countries in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice of the WBG, coordinating the team of regional counterparts and supporting the operational teams.
Bartol previously held a number of positions within IFC, working for the Public Private Partnership and Investment Climate Departments as well as the Special Assistant for the Vice-President for Advisory Services.
He holds B.A. from Yale University (international relations), M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (international business), and Ph.D. from the Law School, University of Zagreb (corporate social responsibility).
Mohammad Shawar
Mohammad Shawar is the Vice President - Business Banking and Financial Institutions Head at Quds Bank in Palestine and is responsible for a facilities portfolio worth about USD 500 MM. He has over 13 years’ experience in the banking sector and vast knowledge of business and credit projects.
Prior to joining Quds Bank, he held several senior banking positions, including Corporate Credit Assistant Manager and Head of SMEs at Arab Bank. He has a B.S. in Finance and Banking and a MBA from Birzeit University - Palestine.
Albeir Habash
Albeir Habash is the Vice President - Credit Head at Quds Bank in Palestine. He has an MBA from Birzeit University - Palestine.
The webinar recording is available for members only on the member portal here.
For more information, please contact: Jessica Alfaro
WebEx
SME FINANCE FORUM
ronyg@panapps.co
America/New_York
public
Dec
19
SME FINANCE FORUM
Webinar
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2019-12-30 19:00:00
2019-12-30 19:00:00
Members Only Webinars for 2019
Each month the SME Finance Forum organizes webinars for its members. We invite industry experts from leading banks or innovative fintechs to talk about their approach to small business finance. Members can tune in to the webinars via WebEx or the phone. The webinars are designed to be interactive and we encourage members to ask questions and engage in a discussion with the speakers.
If you are interested in learning more about the webinars please contact Jessica Alfaro at jalfaro2@ifc.org
Jan. 31 - Credit Scorecards and Big Data
Feb. 27 - New Technology Changing Trade and Supply Chain Finance
Mar. 20 - Women’s Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative (We-Fi)
Apr. 10 - Banking as a Platform vs Digital Banking Competition in Emerging Markets
May 7 - Digital Non-Financial Services for SMEs and Women Entrepreneurs
June 19 - How to Build Successful Real and Financial Sector Partnerships for SME Financing
July 10 - De-risking: Innovations in ID, KYC, and AML
July 18 - FSB Evaluation of the Effects of Financial Regulatory Reforms on SME Financing
August 28 - SME Finance at the Cutting Edge: Going Beyond Finance
September 5 - Powering Prosperity: Financing Women Entrepreneurs in 2019
September 11 - Serving Informal and Very Small Enterprises
November 20 - SME Credit Rating
December 11 - SME Governance Gaps and Solutions
** Past webinar recordings are available to SME Finance Forum members on our Vimeo Channel and our Members App
Webinar
SME FINANCE FORUM
ronyg@panapps.co
America/New_York
public
Dec
19
SME FINANCE FORUM
WebEx
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2019-12-10 19:00:00
2019-12-10 19:00:00
Members Only Webinar - Beyond Finance: SME Governance Gaps and Solutions
Good corporate governance is important for businesses of all sizes, but resources for implementing best practices have largely been focused on corporate businesses. Small and medium enterprises and especially family-owned business have distinct challenges that require specific tools and frameworks for their sustainable development. Utilizing resources from the newly published SME Governance Guidebook, this webinar will highlight some of the “growth pains” SMEs face and best practice approaches to overcome these challenges. According to the report, good governance improves business performance and increases the chances of a company’s long-term survival, which makes SMEs with strong governance potentially better clients and lower lending risks. The presenters will share how analyzing SME governance can help better evaluate lending risk exposure. Further, participants will learn how to share this tool directly with their SME clients to assist them in strengthening their own internal governance and, hence, mitigate growth risks.
Speakers
Vladislava (Slava) Ryabota is the Regional Corporate Governance Lead, South Asia, IFC and a key member of IFC’s Corporate Governance Leadership Team and the center point of contact for investment services for IFC in South Asia. Ms. Ryabota joined IFC in 1997 and worked in a number of corporate governance advisory projects and was covering investment operations in Europe and Central Asia. Ms. Ryabota specializes in assessment of corporate governance practices of banks, board evaluation, family business governance, governance of funds and SMEs, and has been regularly providing trainings for directors and corporate secretaries. Ms. Slava graduated from the Law Faculty of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University in 1993. She continued her education at Essex University, UK. She holds a PhD degree and is a mediator accredited by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution in UK. She is a professional trainer and the author of a number of books and articles on corporate governance, commercial law and mediation.
Karen Lumakis is the Chief Risk Officer at Business Partners Ltd in South Africa. Karen is a Chartered Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor and has a Bachelor of Honours degree in Accounting from the University of Cape Town.
Business Partners Ltd specialises in providing business finance to SMEs for the last 38 years. In a year, Business Partners approves approximately 400 equity and quasi-equity deals and invests approximately $100 million.
Business Partners has approximately 2000 active investments. The Business Partners philosophy is to understand and assess the Entrepreneur, the industry in which the Entrepreneur operates and the Entrepreneur’s business; thereby fully understanding the Entrepreneur’s potential. The added-value services provided by Business Partners assist in creating an integrated solution for the Entrepreneur, including consulting and mentorship services.
Business Partners International was established in 2004 as a subsidiary to apply the investment model refined in South Africa to other African countries which have some of the fastest growing economies in the world. The company has been established in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. Business Partners Ltd was recently awarded Gold in the category SME BANK OF THE YEAR – AFRICA at the Global SME Finance Awards in 2019.
The webinar presentations are available for members only on the member portal here. Recording will be posted soon.
Read a summary here.
Contact: Jessica Alfaro
WebEx
SME FINANCE FORUM
ronyg@panapps.co
America/New_York
public
Nov
19
SME FINANCE FORUM
WebEx
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2019-11-19 19:00:00
2019-11-19 19:00:00
Members Only Webinar - SME Credit Rating
SMEs present unique problems for ratings agencies, as they do for banks. It is not simply a question of scoring the situation of the entrepreneur’s credit history. Assessing the credit risk of SMEs has been a difficult task for banks due to information asymmetry between lenders and business owners, and challenges in the risk models themselves. By using innovative risk models and advanced technologies, SME credit rating may alleviate some of these difficulties, by providing SMEs a specific credit rating that provide lenders and investors company ratings which mitigate the risk of lending to smaller firms. Traditionally only larger and public corporate businesses have been able to utilize credit ratings to show their creditworthiness to bankers.
Forum's members Experian, an international credit reporting agency and Inbonis, the first European Securities and Markets Authority-accredited CRA (Credit Rating Agency) for SMEs in Europe, will showcase how SME credit ratings can enable small firms to demonstrate their creditworthiness to secure the funding they need. They will discuss how SMEs credit rating is different than corporate and consumer ratings, and what type of data is typically involved. They will also discuss how evolving policies, particularly those like GDPR which affect access to customer data, may affect SME credit ratings, and how lenders may use these ratings to mitigate risk in anticipation of upcoming new Basel rules.
Speakers
James Gothard is the General Manager of Credit Services & Strategy, South East Asia at Experian, a FTSE 50 organisation & global leader in the provision of information, analytical tools & marketing services to organisations & consumers. Currently based in Singapore, James possesses a wealth of experience within the information services sector, with a career spanning more than two decades in the field. He joined Experian in 2002 where he has held a number of project and product management roles, progressing into strategic planning and development, change management/transformation and general management positions. His tenure at Experian includes roles based in the UK, Norway and in Singapore. James has developed, and subsequently led the implementation of strategic business plans and transformation programmes for Experian across key markets such as the UK and EMEA. Prior to joining Experian, James held analytical and consulting positions at R L Polk (now IHS), a global automotive information services provider. Working with automotive manufacturers across Europe and the United States such as Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler UK, his roles were focused on helping clients plan, optimise, and measure retail network performance.
Salil Chugh is the Head of Analytics & Data Partnerships, Asia Pacific at Experian, a FTSE 50 organisation & global leader in the provision of information, analytical tools & marketing services to organisations & consumers. Currently based in Singapore, Salil has more than 16 years of diverse experience of Analytics, Risk management, Mobile Products, Digital Banking and Payments. Salil has hands on experience on implementing analytics, risk and marketing strategies across origination, customer management and collections. He joined Experian in 2017. Prior to the current role, he worked with Experian as a Senior Consultant with the Global Consulting Practice working with Clients in Asia Pacific on portfolio and credit strategies. Prior to Experian, Salil worked with a large private bank in India across multiple roles in Mobile Banking, Digital Payments, Unsecured Products, Cross Sell Policy and Analytics.
Alberto Sánchez Navalpotro is cofounder and CEO of Inbonis Rating, the first Credit Rating Agency (CRA) with SME specific rating methodology registered and supervised with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Prior to Inbonis, Alberto was private equity investor in SME across EU, at Gravitation, the holding company of Charles Beigbeder, and at fund Jolt Capital. Alberto started his career as strategy consultant at Kaiser Associates in London. Alberto holds an MBA from ESCP Europe and an economics degree from Universidad de Alcalá.
Maria Cid is a Lead Rating Analyst at Inbonis Rating, the first Credit Rating Agency (CRA) with SME specific rating methodology registered and supervised with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Economics Graduate with an MBA in International Management and a Certified European Financial Analyst candidate, she has previously worked both in private and public bodies as a financial and international trade consultant to foreign markets. Prior to Inbonis, she formed part of the Investment and Portfolio Management Division at COFIDES, the Spanish Development Finance Institution, helping provide financing for viable private investment projects that contribute to the development and internationalization of developing economies.
Tania Ziegler is the Head of Global Benchmarking at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School and manages the Centre’s alternative finance benchmarking program. This programme tracks the growth and development of capital raising alternative finance activities spanning Europe, North, Central and South America, Asia and the Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. She has authored 18 industry reports since joining the CCAF. Tania is an expert on SME finance and also leads the Centre’s work on ‘SME Access to Finance in LATAM’. Tania completed an MSc at the London School of Economics, and a BA at Loyola College Maryland. Tania is a 2010 Fulbright Scholar.
Shalini Sankaranarayanan is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist with the Credit Infrastructures team under the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice at the World Bank Group. She has over 15 years of experience working on access to finance and financial inclusion issues and specifically in the development and reform of credit reporting systems globally. She has worked extensively on credit reporting reform in West Africa (UEMOA) and in several Caribbean countries, including The Bahamas, Belize, OECS, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Haiti. Her ongoing work includes reform efforts in Somalia, the Seychelles, and Nepal to name a few. Shalini worked as an Economic Consultant on mass torts litigations with National Economic Research Associates, and as an Investment Banker with JP Morgan in New York prior to joining the World Bank. She holds a Master’s in International Economic Development from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC, and a Bachelor’s in International Relations and French from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts.
Read a summary here.
For more information, please contact: Jessica Alfaro
WebEx
SME FINANCE FORUM
ronyg@panapps.co
America/New_York
public