ADFIMI International Development Forum was held in Istanbul, Turkey, on September 11-12, with the theme “SME Finance & Development in the Age of Digitalization."
In the context of the international development agenda, promoting SME development globally considered an important priority. However, access to finance remains a key constraint to SME development. The phenomenon of digitalization has recently opened new venues and opportunities to SMEs and SME finance institutions. The forum attempted to examine the impact of digitalisation on SME development and finance.
The two-day event hosted around 150 participants with 28 speakers and 8 moderators from over 20 countries and 8 international organisations.
This post-forum report intends to provide summaries of the presentations. Our CEO, Mathew Gamser, gave the Keynote Speech.
Takeaways include:
- Annual SME finance gap is over 5 billion USD per year for the formal sector.
- SME finance by banks is difficult because SMEs are cash businesses and require excessive workforce which makes it unprofitable for NDFIs.
- With digitalization, SMEs could provide digital assets instead of mortgage or land as collateral.
