National MSME Awards: Wema Bank Reiterates Support For Female SMEs, Rewards Desoor Bags With Car
Wema Bank, one of Nigeria’s leading commercial banks, has reiterated its commitment to supporting female SMEs in Nigeria.
The company demonstrated this recently at the 2024 National MSME Awards, held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja to commemorate World MSME Day. It gave out a brand-new car to Desoor Bags, the winner of the Outstanding MSME Clinic award (female category).
The two-day event was organised by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Office of the Vice President, to celebrate the successes in the Nigerian MSME Sector and develop sustainable solutions for the continuous growth and development of the sector, to boost the Nigerian economy ultimately.
Wema Bank, reputed for its positive impact across various areas including MSMEs and Women, not only contributed immensely to the solutions garnered in the daytime event but also sealed its commemoration of World MSME Day 2024 at the National MSME Awards 2024 by gifting a car to Desoor Bags, the winner of the Outstanding MSME Clinic award (female category).
This remarkable gesture simultaneously reinforced the Bank’s role as an enabler for MSMEs and its reputation for championing women’s empowerment and promoting gender inclusion in Nigeria.
Presenting the award and car gift on behalf of Moruf Oseni, the MD/CEO of Wema Bank, Tunde Mabawonku, Executive Director of Retail and Digital Business at Wema Bank, highlighted the impact of the World MSME Day 2024 events, emphasising the need to provide tailored support for MSMEs and advocating for a seamless synergy of capacity development, financial and material empowerment, collaboration, as well as leveraging technology and digital, to build a supportive ecosystem for MSMEs to thrive.
He said, “First, I would like to congratulate Adesola, the Outstanding MSME Clinic Award winner in the female category of the 6th National MSME Awards. It is no surprise that we choose to reward a woman today. Wema Bank has always demonstrated a strong commitment to empowering women and provided tailored solutions for them to thrive in their personal and professional endeavours. We continue to do it through our women-focused proposition, SARA, and today, we have chosen to support this outstanding woman-owned business with a car to reduce stress and increase efficiency for her as she continues to grow her business.
“As we commemorate World MSME Day today, it is important that we set our sights forward on the future of MSMEs in Nigeria. This is why the conversations we’ve had today are important and Wema Bank is more than glad to be part of it. As a Bank that is committed to empowering lives through innovation, we are dedicated to not only providing innovative solutions and resources for customers to thrive but also empowering them to make the most of these solutions we provide.
“Technology and digital are the future, and intelligence is here to stay beyond providing financial resources for MSMEs, we are also focusing on empowering them with digital skills to ensure they are not left behind in this digital evolution. The goal is digital empowerment for scale. To maximise our impact, we will continue to innovate and collaborate to drive capacity development, financial and material empowerment, technology and digital empowerment for MSMEs, to build an enabling environment for these MSMEs to thrive”.
The first part of the event was a gathering of top reputable institutions and entities including Wema Bank, to brainstorm and proffer sustainable financial solutions to not only provide affordable loans and funding for MSMEs but to also ensure that these financial solutions are easily accessible and available to MSMEs, while the second day of the Event was the National MSME Awards.
The Award Ceremony celebrated top-performing MSMEs across various categories from different parts of the country, awarding them with gifts and cash prizes in a show of support for the advancement of their businesses.