BIIC – ADB HOLDS SEMINAR ON “ACCESSING FINANCE FOR BUSINESS”

The UDS Business Directorate, in collaboration with the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), organized a seminar to train incubates on the theme ‘Accessing Finance for Business. The day seminar was aimed at equipping incubates on how to prepare for and access financing for their businesses. The seminar was attended by 28 participants and was facilitated by three resource persons from the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB). Four staff of the UDS Business Directorate also participated in the seminar. The seminar started at 3:45 pm.

Dr Richard Yeboah, Director of the Business Directorate, in his opening address said that the purpose of the seminar is to educate the incubates on what they need to do in accessing funds for their businesses, the sources of funds available to businesses and finally financial packages available at ADB. He introduced the team from ADB as Mr Seini Issah Kataali, the Northern Area Manager, Mr Felix Segu Eshun, Deputy Northern Area Manager and Mr. Nashiru Fuseini a relationship Officer at the Tamale Main Branch. All these resource persons are experienced bankers with between 12 to 30 years of experience in Banking, especially Relationship management and Credit Administration.

Mr Seini Issah Kataali, leader of the team, addressed the participant by introducing their bank and its jurisdiction. In the Northern part of Ghana, they are present in all five regions with 13 branches. He said they did not come to bother the participant with their products but rather to help prepare them on how they could access finance as part of the incubation process.

Mr Felix Segu Eshun made most of the presentation with interjections from his colleagues. It was in two parts: the first part was captioned BUSINESS NUGGET and the second INVEST WITH ME. He took the participant through how to package a business that will qualify for financial support. Among many other things, Mr Eshun said “every business has its own blood group” meaning not every business is good for everyone hence each entrepreneur needs to carefully select the business to engage in. He admonished starters not to borrow from financial institutions to start their businesses. In addition to own sources of funds, he explained available options that one can access to finance their business and how to access them  These include:  

1. Overdraft
2. Personal loan
3. Revolving loan
4. Bank guarantee
5. Supplier’s credit

He emphasized the need for Trust and Integrity in accessing funding. He said, as starters, incubates should take their business management seriously and have financial discipline.

They were some interactions between the participants and the resource persons where questions were answered and contributions made.

Mr. Eshun proceeded with the second part of the presentation titled “INVEST WITH ME”. For this section, he introduced products available at the ADB to the participants. Some of the products were; the ADB mobile application and USSD code, credit cards, mmofra dakye and money transfer. He said as business people (incubates) they need to patronize the VISA card which assists them to load money and use it to pay for goods everywhere. He ended his presentation by assuring all the incubates that they are always available to assist them in their finances.

CLOSING REMARK

Dr Richard Yeboah, on behalf of the directorate,  thanked the team from ADB for coming to educate the incubates. He hoped that the collaboration with ADB would be long-lasting. He also thanked the incubates for coming and urged them to put what they have learned into practice. He promised the incubates that there would be more seminars coming up to enhance their capacity as business people and that they should avail themselves of such opportunities. He finally thanked the team from the UDS Business Directorate for their effort for a successful seminar. Participants called for more of such programmes. The meeting closed at 6:00 pm.