Finverity, the mid-market supply chain finance platform focused on emerging markets, has announced the launch of its Emerging Leaders Programme (ELP). The programme aims to identify, nurture, and grow the future generation of local trade finance leaders in emerging markets and has already selected and onboarded eight African NBFIs (non-banking financing institutions).
The typical profile of successful candidates is that of a local fund or NBFI active in or looking to participate in Purchase Order (PO) Finance, Factoring, SCF (Supply Chain Finance) and other types of Funded Trade Finance Products. These are entities with ambitious management teams and business goals that seek to become trade finance leaders in their respective markets.
The ELP is being launched in direct response to requests from institutional investors and lenders in Finverity’s supply chain finance (SCF) ecosystem who are seeking SCF deal flow from emerging markets in their quest to support the real SME sector.
Such institutional investors wish to do so by tapping into locally based NBFIs and smaller regional banks to invest directly through them. This will allow them to participate in various trade finance portfolios supporting initiatives such as financial inclusion, SME lending, ESG funding and more.
Finverity believes the ELP will become a key driver in its mission to reduce the global trade finance gap that is currently estimated at US$3tn by matching capital allocators with local professionals who employ international best practice standards, ultimately providing SMEs with lower interest rates, better customer service and access to the financial services required to grow.
The issues that most institutional funders face when trying to deploy capital through local NBFIs in emerging markets are as follows:
- Lack of transparency and reporting, with the key issues being monitoring the precise deployment of funding and collection rates at maturity
- Operational processes, legal infrastructure, and risk frameworks. The level of sophistication demanded by institutional investors is often significantly higher than the one employed by the average NBFI employed in its day-to-day operations
- Scalability! Can the NBFI prove it will be able to manage a portfolio of clients 10 times larger than its current book? How will it maintain quality of origination and ongoing risk monitoring?
What they said:
Ahanna Anaba, Head of Sales – Digital Solutions & Partnerships, Finverity, commented, “Marrying international trade finance standards with the local talent and opportunities in emerging markets is a very powerful combination. In our day-to-day work with African banks and NBFIs, we clearly see the strong calibre of trade finance professionals working in Africa, as well as the demand for better priced sources of capital for onward lending. The ELP aims to build capacity, credibility and ultimately scalability of these SME lending portfolios, and we are therefore very excited to be part of the next set of growth stories on the continent.”
Alex Fenechiu, Co-Founder & COO at Finverity, commented, “Finverity is continuously growing a supply chain finance origination to distribution business focused on the mid-market corporate segment in emerging markets through its own platform. Having developed relationships with both funders and corporates simultaneously, we’ve faced many of the challenges these emerging leaders are confronted with. Similarly, through the nature of our business, we’ve also been exposed to the challenges that exist on the other side of the table, when investors want to deploy capital but need their boxes ticked before they are able to do so. It became clear to us that there is quite a chasm between where smaller but ambitious local players currently are and where they need to be in order to become “investable” in the eyes of these institutions. We’ve been asked by existing institutional clients to help them get there and we are thrilled to be launching the Emerging Leaders Programme in response.”
Applications remain open until 31st August 2022 from NBFIs and smaller regional banks located in East, West and Southern Africa. Full details and application contacts are available here.
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