Access Bank Plc, through its women’s market program – the W Initiative, is partnering with Nigerian entrepreneur and business strategist, Nelly Agbogu, to organize the 5th edition of the Naija Brand Chick Trade Fair.
The W Initiative, a flagship women empowerment programme from Access Bank plc, provides a series of opportunities for women, ranging from health, capacity building, businesses, and loans.
The Naija Brand Chick Trade Fair, an annual fair that started in 2019, has grown to be a marketplace for female entrepreneurs to exhibit their products and services.
The two-day fair is scheduled to hold at La Madison Place, Lekki, Lagos, on April 9th and 10th 2022.
Access Bank as the exclusive financial partner and headline sponsor for the fair will be giving free capacity building training sessions to all female businesses affiliated at the fair in order to equip their financial literacy and build business competencies.
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Abiodun Olubitan, Group Head, Women Banking, while speaking on the importance of Access to Market for female entrepreneurs, said “at Access Bank, we understand the importance of contributing to the growth of the economy by providing business yielding opportunities for women-owned businesses.
“We believe in the vision of today’s female entrepreneur, and we are willing to help her grow. Accessing new markets is one of our growth strategies and this partnership has indeed contributed to scores of women entrepreneurs expanding their profit and business portfolio through physical trade exhibitions and fairs. Through the W Initiative, women-owned businesses across Africa can now access business growth opportunities through discounted financing such as the W Power Loan and capacity building programs like the Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton and IFC certified Mini MBA.”
Also speaking, Ayodele Olojede, Group Head of Emerging Businesses, said, “supporting MSMEs’ growth and development is a core proposition for the Bank as we understand their contribution to the economy in terms of GDP and Employment.
“However, we also know the challenges business owners face and we have developed our proposition to alleviate the constraints. Furthermore, we have also digitized this solution to ensure that we can cater to the vast majority of MSMEs. Some of these innovations include our online account opening platform for businesses, digital lending platform, Digital payment solution platform (Swiftpay), Access to market (Discounted Website), and our capacity-building programmes.