INDONESIA: IFC Helps Expand Access to Finance for Indonesian Women and Small Medium Enterprises

PT Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) and IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, have signed a cooperation agreement to enhance the bank's products and services towards female entrepreneurs, allowing women to obtain financing for their businesses more easily.

"As part of the Cooperation Agreement, IFC Indonesia will advise BII as it sets out to become the bank of choice for women-owned businesses in Indonesia. Through this initiative, IFC will assist BII to improve its reach to both the small medium enterprises and women entrepreneurs," IFC said.

“We welcome the partnership with IFC and their support for our business expansion in SMEC segment. With its reputation and extensive experience in SME business, IFC will provide assistance for us in developing SME for women entrepreneurs in Indonesia,” said Ridha Wirakusumah, President Director of BII. “The SME and Commercial segment, we believe, is the backbone of the Indonesian economy and we hope that through this partnership will strengthen our contribution to this sector. The SME/Commercial segment has contributed 37% of our total loans as of June 2010, and will remain one of our key focus businesses going forward,” he added.

“Women represent a significant market opportunity for commercial banks, as they are currently under-served with financial products, particularly in emerging markets,” said Dorothy Berry, IFC Vice President for Human Resources and Communications. “IFC is pleased to partner with BII to increase access to finance for women to grow their businesses”.

Indonesian women entrepreneurs are facing many challenges in terms of their business size and location. More than 90 percent of women-owned or managed small medium enterprises used their own savings to establish their business. Most of them are located outside Jakarta and 82 percent of women-owned or managed small medium enterprises have monthly revenue of less than $ 5,000.

BII is an existing IFC client, and is the fifth largest private commercial bank in Indonesia. The bank currently has 286 branches and 876 BII's automated teller machines and 15 cash deposit machines across Indonesia.

IFC has been at the forefront of providing financial products and advisory services to increase access to finance for women entrepreneurs, reduce gender-based barriers in the business environment. IFC also works to increase access to finance for small medium enterprises in developing countries by providing funding for equity, loans and mezzanine finance to financial institutions focusing on small medium enterprises financing and by building capacity of financial institutions and raising awareness on best small medium enterprises banking practices.