Afreximbank Calls for Major Scale-Up of Factoring to Drive SME Growth Across Africa
Afreximbank has stressed the need to significantly scale up factoring and supply chain finance across Africa to help close the continent’s vast Small and Medium Enterprise financing gap and strengthen regional value chains.
Speaking at the Bank’s annual Factoring Workshop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Mrs Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President for Intra-African Trade and Export Development and a Member of the FCI Executive Committee, said Africa’s factoring volumes have risen from €21.6 billion in 2017 to €50 billion in 2024.
Nearly 200 factoring companies now operate across the continent, yet activity remains far below the level required to drive meaningful transformation.
She highlighted that Africa needs to raise factoring volumes to at least €240 billion, equal to around 10% of the continent’s GDP, to support SME-led growth. She added that this goal will require increased financing, stronger legal reforms, wider training programmes and deeper partnerships.
Mr Neal Harm, Secretary General of FCI, told participants that factoring and supply chain finance are essential for SME development and called for practical solutions and strong collaboration.
Representing the Governor of the Central Bank of West African States, Special Advisor Mr Charlie Dingui emphasised the role of factoring in enabling businesses to convert invoices into immediate liquidity. He said this is particularly important in environments characterised by long payment delays and recovery challenges.
Côte d’Ivoire, with an estimated factoring and supply chain finance potential of US$5 billion, remains a major opportunity for economic growth. Although the country’s economy is strong and the cocoa sector supports millions of people, only 12% of SMEs seek working capital from formal financial institutions due to high costs, strict conditions and slow loan approvals.
The workshop forms part of Afreximbank and FCI’s long-standing efforts to build technical capacity needed to expand supply chain finance across Africa and support the African Continental Free Trade Area.
More than 5,000 people have received training through over 25 capacity-building programmes, including the Certificate of Trade Finance in Africa, AFRACAD, FCI’s online training and the FCI Mentoring Programme.
