Held at the Accra City Hotel, the summit afforded the bank an opportunity to listen to the concerns and challenges of SMEs due to the current challenges facing the financial sector in general and how the bank is positioned to continue to support businesses.

Explaining the bank’s interest in the growth of SMEs, Director of Commercial and SME Banking at Fidelity Bank, Nana Esi Idun-Arkhurst, stated, “As one of the top seven banks in Ghana, we are very much committed to the growth and success of SMEs since they support the general economy to expand.”

“We are ready to increase support in the form of unique products, specialised services and financial and technical assistance to grow and expand Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the country,” she said.

We want to work together with all SMEs to help them identify risks early in their businesses in order to properly manage those risks,” she added.

The Director of Finance of Fidelity Bank, Mr Atta Gyan, explained to businesses why Fidelity Bank is the bank of the moment and why SMEs must continue to transact business with the bank.

He educated SMEs on the factors that constitute a strong bank and how the bank is performing in terms of its capital adequacy ratio, liquidity position, quality of earnings and quality of management and staff.

He added that businesses must trust local banks like Fidelity Bank since the bank has recorded consistent higher performance for over 10 years now.

Other directors of the bank also encouraged SMEs to utilise services like ‘Letters of Credit’, ‘Documentary Collections’, ‘Open Accounts’ and ‘Advance Payment’. SMEs were also exposed to the process involved in online transactions using the bank’s Internet Banking Platform. Another important service, the Collections Management System, which is a dynamic collections tool that offers convenience for establishing collection agreements with businesses was also introduced to SMEs

The interactive session saw most SMEs voicing out their challenges and receiving real time solutions from relationship managers of the bank.