Ayo Olojede is the Group Head, Emerging Businesses at Access Bank. She is responsible for the strategy formulation to deliver the bottom-line factor of the division.
Ayo has over 20 years operational banking experience in Africa and North America at HSBC and Skye Bank (now Polaris) prior to joining Access Bank.
She is very passionate about the sustainable growth of MSMEs and possesses strong knowledge and hands on experience of best practices in SME banking, value propositions and risk management approaches to expand financial access to SMEs and women led businesses. Her work has achieved recognition for “best in class” SME specific credit assessment methodology both locally and internationally to expand lending to “new to Borrowing” SMEs
She is a member of the bank’s Digital Council which has overall responsibility for the bank’s digital strategy, approved partnership with fintech companies and monitoring the implementation of digital initiatives.
She is a university scholar, a Fellow Chartered Accountant and holds an MBA degree from Kellogg School of Management, Evanston.
She speaks globally on SME Finance and business services
What was your childhood like and how has it influenced you till date?
I spent more time with male figures who were mostly my uncles. My neighborhood also had more boys and playing soccer with them was not strange at all. I grew up in a neighborhood with more boys than girls and I played soccer with them. My father also encouraged me to always strive to do well. This had impact on my mindset and I was groomed not to accept ‘no’ for an answer….it did not matter whether it was a man or woman, you just have to strive to be better every day. Going on errands and coming back without the desired result was not acceptable, you just had to try and figure out solutions to every challenge by yourself. Today, all solutions I have worked on have been borne out of the same attitude, approach and mindset. This is the same DNA that my organisation, Access Bank is made of; Impossible means nothing! Impossible drives you to attain and pioneer changes in the industry that makes you number one. It’s not possible for you to work with people like Herbert/Roosevelt and not dream to fly.
What are your responsibilities as Group Head, Emerging Businesses at Access Bank and how do you carry it out?
As the Group Head, Emerging Businesses, I have core responsibility for market segmentation, business strategy, product/value offerings leveraging digitisation and providing support at a global level to the sales team, both in Nigeria and across Africa working with respective product heads. My work is to accelerate market growth through product innovation, digital transformation and expansion into new segments.
Digital is the obvious new frontier, how so?
The COVID-19 pandemic is a humanitarian as well as a development crisis. Responses to the crisis has helped unlock new digital technologies to facilitate recovery. New and disruptive technology has been used to create decent work, to improve health services and outcomes, and I would say organisations must have policies that promote technology. Governments should look to begin to deploy technology to enable new models of health delivery that focus on health outcomes. In education, remote education using appropriate technologies must be integrated into traditional education systems. I think it will be stating the obvious to say that things are going to drastically change even further, which is why it is very important for all of us to be digitally informed.
Share on managing MSMEs across Africa. What are the peculiar challenges these business owners face?
The estimated market size of MSMEs across Africa is about 90m. The 90m African MSMEs are mostly unregistered micro enterprises, concentrated in 4 sectors within 10 countries accounting for 75% GDP. Nigeria makes 46% of this number. My work is to accelerate market growth through propositions and product innovation, digital transformation and expansion into new segments.
Over 80% of Africa’s estimated ~90 million MSMEs are unregistered due to limited incentives for formalisation, costly processes and bureaucracy. Given most formal financial support channels require proof of registration to verify authenticity, 75 – 80 million MSMEs may already be considered ineligible for traditional financial support from banks and so on. Access to finance – most financial institutions do not have designed solutions/programs for the MSMEs and this is the reason why most the businesses operate at the micro level without financial support required to achieve scale.
Are there sufficient information out there to help expand financial access to women led businesses?
Focus on women’s entrepreneurship is an excellent business variable and essential for economic growth. In the same way that we do not have a high number of FIs with designed solutions for SMEs, women led businesses are disproportionately disadvantaged. There is still limited information on women-owned small to medium to provide information on opportunities that exists for women to get funding opportunity.
Read also: TGI Group concludes women’s month with personal finance webinar
Financial access to women led businesses is a strategic priority for us at Access Bank and we are deliberate about our propositions from a pricing perspective -our loans for women are significantly discounted and there are no collateral requirements, from knowledge and information dissemination to help them better manage their business through a IFC managed mini MBA programs, our pitch-a ton initiative to give grants to deserving women led businesses for them as well ensuring we put out the information out there. Check our W website and be part a community where you ask questions and get all the information you need to run your business.
We focus quite a lot non-financial barriers which influences the degree to which women owned SMEs can formally access financial products and services and realize the growth potential of their enterprises.
Share about managing MSMEs in North America at HSBC. Are the challenges faced by this set of entrepreneurs different from what obtains in Africa?
Most OECD countries have programmes which support SMEs. A significant amount of public money is used to support start-ups, the acquisition of equipment, R&D, training and consultancy services, in the form of direct grants, tax concessions, low interest rate loans or loan guarantees. SMEs play a key role in pioneering and developing new markets and therefore programmes for improving the diffusion of technology is focused on raising the capacity of SMEs to absorb technology. More financial institutions have designed solutions/programs for the MSMEs and this is helping MSMEs to grow and achieve scale at a faster rate than we have in Africa.
Why are you passionate about the sustainable growth of MSMEs?
MSMEs represent the lion’s share of businesses and employment, as they represent 96% of businesses and 84% of employment. Therefore, they are one of the strongest drivers of economic development. However, despite their potential, MSMEs in the country and African region tend to stay small and are significantly less productive than large firms.
One of the biggest challenges for MSMEs is the lack of accessible, adequate, and affordable financing that prevent them from growing, increasing productivity and competitiveness, and from investing in innovation, including their capacity to embrace digital solutions. Another challenge relates to SMEs’ capacity to adopt sustainable practices increasingly requested by large firms as they seek greater transparency and accountability in their own sustainability efforts. SMEs don’t always have the relevant knowledge, human resources, or financial capacity to invest in these issues, risking their competitiveness and integration into larger regional or global value chains.
Adopting sustainable practices, models and mindsets, companies will be better placed to drive innovation, deepen markets, enhance competitiveness, strengthen supply chain resilience, and diversify their sources of investment.
Now more than ever, the need for companies to have solid sustainable business models has become evident as it determines the resilience and likelihood of survival to economic shocks, especially in its value chain.
How important is SME banking?
When analyzing the challenges that MSMEs face to impact growth, most of the variables I have highlighted have been focused on the demand-side. On the supply side are the banks themselves. Why do traditional FIs not have designed programs for MSMEs? High risk nature of the segment and the cost to serve. With increased regulation, banks have had to tighten up their requirements and becoming more cautious about the risk in their portfolios. Considering that small businesses are riskier than the larger businesses, banks are averse to approving application for a loan for small businesses.
Some banks are already leading the charge with their SMEs offerings through a dedicated SME banking segment and this can be seen in how many SME programs and features they have, accessibility and interest rates on loans, ease of digital banking, and handling customer-related issues like Access Bank. The more SME banking programs we have in the industry, the more we can collectively close the over N600bn annual Access to finance gap.
We just celebrated International Women’s Month, would you say that the biases have been broken?
We are seeing many more announcements of women that are encouraging but it is still evolving and still slow. This is due to culture, religion, bias and many other factors. This year’s celebration was yet another opportunity to draw attention to the need for gender balance and equity, a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination which women have been enduring.
We are hoping that many more people in positions of authority will help ensure that the necessary change aligns to commitment and promises to redress the gender imbalance in various sectors.
What is it that every young female executive needs to know as she rises in her career?
Don’t wait to be invited to the table, pull the chair and show your grit! It took some time for me to learn this. The fears that hold us back are at best our imagination, you will be surprised how much you can achieve when you put fear in a closet, where it belongs.
On youth entrepreneurship, how can they best be encouraged as many are into entrepreneurship full time and others as side hustle
We will need to have designed solutions both from the private sector and government that will provide the following:
· Single Digit Interest Rates for loans
· Entrepreneurship Education, investment readiness.
· Tax Incentives from Government
· Friendly Trade Policies.
Considering that this very important segment is also a high risk segment requiring start-up capital, access to finance is also a challenge and constraint FIs from fully embracing the opportunity.
There are quite a number of NGOs that are pushing the frontiers on youth entrepreneurship and driving engagement to make the designed solutions available both at the government level and private sector level. Partnership with these organisations will help with de-risking the segment for banks and making designed solutions available. There is also a need to invest.
What is the concept of ‘New to borrowing?’
Access to finance is a key constraint to SME growth, it is the second most cited obstacle facing SMEs to grow their businesses in developing countries like Nigeria which keeps them small and constraints their ability to grow.
To improve SMEs’ access to finance and expand the funnel to include more Micro customers who would ordinarily not be able to access funding from a traditional FIs, we are consistently seeking innovative solutions to unlock sources of capital for underserved segments such as women owned SMEs.
The new customers that we are able to bring into the pool to unlock capital for the first time are described as ‘New to Borrowing’.
What we do is to combine advisory and lending services to clients to strengthen their ability to continue to access finance to support their growth.
Share on how your work has achieved recognition for ‘Best In Class’ SME specific credit assessment methodology, both locally and internationally
The work we have describe under the ‘new to Borrowing’ concept qualifies as ‘best in class’….Introducing innovation in SME finance such as cashflow loans, which has now evolved to platform, instant business loans. The programs have received World Bank recognition and they are working with us to fully digitise the process. The SMEFF recognised the program in the innovation category in 2019 for Africa, the loan programs won the bank – SME Bank of the year in 2019 in Nigeria.
As a member, what does being a member of the bank’s digital council entail?
The Digital Council embraces extra ordinary possibilities that digital holds for the organisation in alignment with the bank’s vision. Issues, solutions, ideas are discussed, implemented, monitored and tracked.
You were Head, Emerging Businesses at Diamond Bank before becoming Group Head, Emerging Businesses at Access Bank, what was the transition like for you?
It’s been very interesting and a true fulfillment for me. The Access journey amplified the work and created opportunities for achievement that we did not think was possible, especially with digital transformation. Pivoting the business progressively on digital can only get better.
As a top female executive, what are your challenges and how are you rising above them?
You need to have a support system that will help with chores, kids and so on, that helps you focus on giving your best at work. Work out what that means for you and keep going. Seek a role model who also has responsibilities and is succeeding at the place of work. You will learn from how they have been able to overcome and apply what works to your life. Seek help where you need it, you don’t have to be a superwoman to get everything done. I believe in the power of team, it has helped me tremendously in getting things done.
Final words
Own your success
