HSBC Business Banking workshops

HSBC and FSVC cooperation holds education training programme called SME Financial Advisory

As one of the most successful business banking divisions in Egypt, and as part of our strategic direction to contribute in SME market development to increase brand awareness in the SME local market, HSBC Business Banking, in cooperation with Financial Services Volunteers Corp (FSVC), held a five-day training programme for local consultants involved in small and medium business development.

SME Financial Advisory comes after the successful launch of the first Egyptian bilingual web portal Yallabusiness.com, targeting the development of business knowledge for small and medium businesses and providing useful tips on how to start and run their businesses in addition to banking information and international trading tools.

Over the course of five full days, the programme provides vital information to local consultants who are active in SME development about how to examine, build or fix financial gaps for their target SME customers to make them better qualified for external finance with a major focus on bank borrowing. Combining the expertise of foreign and local financial consultants and the hands-on experience of the HSBC Business Banking team, consultants get to understand the importance of having a solid financial structure, in addition to technical and managerial aspects, to make SMEs eligible for bank borrowing. Through the programme and in their transformation to become true advisors, SME consultants get to understand the important role they play as a vital link between businesses and the bank before, during and after assessing a customer credit application.

The course focuses on two major directions. First is the educational part covering three main topics: Financial Advisory, Management Advisory and Corporate Governance. Second is the awareness part in which HBEG offers banking solutions to business banking clients through our products and services.

We were happy to see a number of renowned active participants in the market, namely The American University in Cairo (AUC) on the academic side and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) (World Bank Group) on the professional side, joining forces with HSBC by contributing to technical and logistical efforts. This was due to their understanding of the importance of this kind of training that is the first of its kind in the Egyptian market.

Head of Business Banking, Bassam Azab, said: “I am very happy to see the attendees very impressed with the initiative, the programme content and the quality of products from HSBC that were crafted in a manner that addresses the particular needs of business customers. I believe this is another successful step in raising our brand awareness among market participants and, by leading this initiative, HSBC is creating the missing link between banks and SME customers by developing professional intermediaries that can align the expectations of both sides (banks and SMEs), making those businesses more qualified for bank finance. As a leader of this initiative, I am certain that HSBC will gain the benefit of a ‘first mover’ being the first target bank for this new generation of SME advisors whenever they spot the client needs for bank financing or for the more general banking liability and transaction needs.

“The success of the first round of the training programme is making us more encouraged to join forces with more market participants in the coming period to make more runs of the programme to enlarge the pool of SME advisors in the market”.