LAGOS, NIGERIA — Moving small businesses past the initial fundraising hurdle requires a shift from informal accounting habits to structured corporate bookkeeping. While many micro-enterprises attribute their stagnation to a lack of available capital from commercial lenders, underwriting departments frequently point to a lack of formal structure—including unaudited cash flows and poor governance—as the real reasons applications are declined.
To address this financing gap, First Bank of Nigeria Limited has finalized plans to host its latest SMEConnect Webinar Series, a specialized digital masterclass designed to simplify corporate financing and help small businesses upgrade their credit profiles.
The event will feature a keynote address by Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance and Convener of the DashMe Foundation, Kemi Adeosun. She will outline the specific fiscal policies and structural reforms necessary to transition small businesses into bankable entities capable of securing institutional credit.
Connecting Development Finance with Grassroots Commerce
The digital summit will move from policy overviews to a panel discussion featuring key stakeholders from both development and commercial finance.
The panel includes Oluwatoyin Edu, Executive Director of MSMEs at the Bank of Industry ($\text{BOI}$); alongside industry analysts Afoluwake Dahunsi and Helen Willie. The conversation will focus on how small businesses can successfully position themselves to access low-interest intervention funds from development banks.
The masterclass aims to provide business owners with actionable strategies across three core areas:
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Securing Institutional Finance: Demystifying commercial bank requirements to show entrepreneurs the practical steps needed to pass strict credit risk assessments.
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Leveraging Digital Infrastructure: Encouraging the use of modern payment platforms and cloud-based accounting to build reliable, transparent transaction records.
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Overcoming Growth Constraints: Giving owners practical blueprints to manage cash flow fluctuations and navigate localized supply chain disruptions.
Sustaining the Retail Banking Engine
Chuma Ezirim, FirstBank’s Group Executive for e-Business and Retail Products, emphasized that the bank’s initiative targets the single largest hurdle facing the domestic retail sector.
“Access to capital remains the biggest growth constraint for SMEs,” Ezirim stated ahead of the virtual session. “In this edition, funding will be demystified, and entrepreneurs will be shown practical steps to become bankable, connecting them to the right tools and partners to scale their businesses faster.”
The webinar series aligns with FirstBank’s broader SMEConnect platform, an ongoing program designed to bridge the gap between small business owners and institutional financiers. The masterclass also follows recent digital product updates from the bank, including its FirstAdvance digital lending platform hitting a ₦1 billion daily payout milestone, alongside a new partnership with Visa to deploy advanced debit card solutions.
