The World Bank estimates that closing the gender gap in Africa could add $2.5 trillion to the continent's GDP by 2025, underscoring the urgency of investing in women – not just for social justice, but for a more prosperous and equitable future for all Africans. In response, Ecobank’s enhanced Ellevate programme is now more ambitious and inclusive, designed to address the diverse challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. The programme is being extended from new and existing Commercial Banking customers to include new and existing Consumer Banking and Corporate Banking customers, as well as female business leaders, with Corporate Banking customers serving as a pool of mentors. With this expansion, individual entrepreneurs - including those in the formal and informal sectors - can now fully benefit from its enhanced financial and non-financial solutions.

Jeremy Awori, Chief Executive Officer, Ecobank Group, said: “We recognise and applaud the role that women entrepreneurs play in driving socio-economic impact across Africa and are committed to supporting them at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey. Since the launch of the Ellevate programme we have made significant progress, disbursing over US$200 million in loans, providing business networking opportunities, and offering leadership and capacity-building training for businesswomen.”

“Today, the new Ellevate heralds in a new era for gender financing. It is bigger, better and more inclusive, delivering exceptional value to female entrepreneurs and women business leaders. Enhancing our products and solutions for women entrepreneurs to position Ecobank as their bank of choice is an integral component in accelerating the success of our Growth, Transformation and Returns strategy’s objectives. It also supports our Group-wide objective of promoting gender equality and contributing to sustainable development.”

The value propositions of the enhanced Ellevate now include:

• Increasing access to finance with unsecured loans of up to US$50,000
• Competitive interest rates and favourable collateral requirements
• Accommodating customers with a two-year track record instead of the industry-standard three years
• Helping them to find new customers and access new markets across Africa through our innovative online matchmaking MyTradeHub platform
• Training, knowledge sharing webinars, support and other initiatives to enhance customers’ business and leadership skills
• Customised wealth management services
• A one-stop shop to meet insurance needs.
• A loyalty programme providing exclusive offers and discounts at select retail stores and recreation centres

To coincide with the celebrations of the International Women’s Day, our enhanced Ellevate program will be launched by nine of our affiliates (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Senegal, Togo and Zimbabwe) by the end of March 2025. It will then be rolled-out in phases across all our other sub-Saharan African affiliates throughout the year.