Women Entrepreneurs &

SME Financing at

Zara Jabeen Mahbub

Head, Customer Experience

BRAC Bank – Beginning of the Journey

Not Served by

Banks & beyond

Limit of MFIs

Multinational & Local

Corporates

Micro

Business

Small & Medium

Enterprises

Served by all Public &

Private Commercial

Banks

Served by

MFIs

Missing

Middle

To serve the “Missing Middle” and to work as a catalyst for the vibrant yet unbanked

SME sector of Bangladesh, our Chairperson, Sir Fazle Hasn Abed founded BRAC

Bank in 2001 with institutional shareholding of BRAC, ShoreBank & IFC.

BRAC Bank – Philosophy in SME Banking

Differentiating factors –

Triple Bottom Line – People, Planet & Profit

Fund Flow Strategy

Focus on serving SMEs

Focus on Financial Inclusiveness

Empower Women Entrepreneurs

We led the way

First SME Bank of the Country

First commercial bank to provide collateral free loans to SMEs

Lending in the SME Segment can be profitable

First SME Bank to have dedicated Women Entrepreneur Cell.

BRAC Bank – In 10 Years…

• Evolved as Country’s largest SME Bank:

• 430 SME Unit Offices

• 157 Branches & SME Service Centers

• 330+ ATMs

• 14 Financial Kiosks

Customer Touch Points

• SME portfolio: 46,312m

• Customers: 97,847

• Women Loan: : 368m

• Women Customer: 1,389

• Disbursed : 253,263m

• Customer served : 437,377

• Generated employment: 1.3m

Since

Inception

Portfolio

BRAC Bank – Empowering Women in Bangladesh 1/2

• BRAC BANK is the first bank in the country to setup a Women Entrepreneur Cell

under its SME Division in 2006 and introduced a loan product only for Women

Entrepreneurs - “PROTHOMA”.

• Women Entrepreneur Cell is a team at the BRAC Bank head office lead by

Senior Managers & Relationship officers who are working across the country to

cater to women entrepreneurs. CROs have been playing an exemplary role not

only by providing loans but also providing suggestions & expert advices related to

their businesses.

• Preferential rate of interest 10% is offered to Women Entrepreneurs where

standard rate is 22%

• Since inception of Women Entrepreneur Cell, we disbursed 3,968 million which

has served 8,504 Women Entrepreneurs (as of Feb 28, 2014). Current

outstanding number of customers is 1,389 whose outstanding amount is BDT 368

million.

BRAC Bank – Empowering Women in Bangladesh 2/2

• There were some challenges initially when we started Women Entrepreneur Cell

such as

o Lack of women entrepreneurs.

o Spotting real women entrepreneurs around the country.

o Discouragement of women from their families to start their own businesses

o Lack of enthusiasm.

o Availing PROTHOMA loan in the name of women entrepreneurs but loan was

used entirely into their husband’s businesses.

o Limited sectors of providing loan.

o Lack of in-depth knowledge about women entrepreneurs.

• However, BRAC BANK SME overcame the above mentioned hurdles through

prudent and in-depth market research and analysis. BRAC Bank has taken a lot of

initiatives to strengthen this cell further.

Creation of Jobs…

• Till date BRAC Bank as created around 1.5 million new employments through it’s

Small Business lending in various sectors (Trading, Manufacturing, Agriculture,

Service, etc.)

• BRAC bank commenced 1st Impact Measurement Study in 2010 with an objective to

validate indicators and track performance of their SME loan where Employment

Creation of both Male & Female employees were measured. The result is –

Economic Sub-

indicator

Specific

measurement

indicators

First Study

Treated

(N=286)

Control

(N=134)t-test

% of

change

over

control

Employment

creation

Number of full

time male

employees

2.26 1.62 3.27 71.68

Number of full

time female

employees

0.31 0.29 0.23 93.55

Male employment

increased by 72%

Female employment

increased by 93%

• It was also found that -

Manufacturing sector employs three times more employees than trading &

agricultural sector.

Highest number of women are employed by manufacturing sector & trading

sector employs the least number of women

Thank You