Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development and Arab Bank for Investment and Foreign Trade have signed a strategic agreement in which the Bank will finance small and medium enterprises granted by the Fund.
The agreement was signed by Suad Abdulla Al Fardan, Executive Director of Support Services in the Khalifa Fund, and Faisal Kaladari, the Chief Executive Officer of Arab Bank.
Based on the agreement, the Arab Bank committed to establish a customer service centre to attract current and new applicants.
The centre will be called “Al Masref Center – Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development”, and it intends to reduce both time and effort in processing applications from customers to benefit from the programmes and services.
This is the second agreement of its type the Fund has signed with a banking institute to facilitate financing to small and medium enterprises. The first agreement was with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. Those agreements aim to provide more finance solutions to help the Fund to reserve its resources and provide the required finance for small and medium enterprises.
“The Fund is working on creating variation in financing solutions to expand the base of Emiratis benefitting from its services through opening new channels for funding”, said Suad Al Fardan.
“During the past few years, the Fund depends on direct finance that number of projects benefited from its specialised finance programmes. Adapting indirect financing method though loan granting will reduce the pressure on the Fund’s financial resources and will allow a bigger segment of entrepreneurs to benefit in startup their small and medium enterprises or expand the existing one”, added Al Fardan.
“It is very critical for the banking sector to contribute to developing small and medium enterprises that have a very important role in the national economy. The Arab Bank is very keen to empower the concept of entrepreneurship in business and to participate in the development of SMEs through creating banking and financing solutions”, said Kaladari.
The Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development provides financing solutions through 6 financial programmes that meet the demands of different segments and assist in increasing competiveness among Emirati entrepreneurs.
Source : WAM News Agency for United Arab Emirates
