First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has introduced another value-added initiative called SheVentures for women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The initiative will provide enhanced support to existing and upcoming women-owned SMEs through access to finance, training and mentoring to boost their business in a sustainable manner. This initiative is the FCMB Women in Business Unit, and was launched on March 7, 2019 in Lagos as part of the bank’s activities to celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) under the theme, “Balancing for Better”. At the ceremony, some women SME operators received loans ranging from N500,000 to N5,000,000.

In a statement, FCMB explained that SheVentures is anchored on a unique selling proposition of “Be You’’, which connotes confidence, independence and the courage required by women to fulfil their aspirations. ​It is designed to engage, inspire and equip potential and existing women entrepreneurs to take bold steps that would launch their businesses to greater heights. 

SheVentures comes with several cutting-edge features and benefits for women-owned SMEs. One of such is the zero-interest rate for an initial period of three months. In addition, FCMB will organise free training and mentoring programmes for 80 women entrepreneurs every quarter, out of which 40 of them will access the loan. This means that by the end of the year, the financial institution would have mentored 320 women and 160 of them would have received the bank’s support.

At the launch ceremony, the Managing Director of FCMB, Mr. Adam Nuru, said the bank strongly believes in the power of entrepreneurship. He added that the contribution of women to economic development cannot be understated, noting that over 30 per cent of businesses owned globally are either female-owned or managed as women establish businesses at a much faster rate than men, thereby making significant contributions to job creation and economic growth. 

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