SMME Funding Box

There is a growing body of work that suggests that lack of knowledge – and not funding – is the biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs today.

This article seeks to bridge some of the knowledge gap that exists in the market. This week we zoom in on the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa).

The entity provides financial products and services to qualifying SMMES and cooperatives through a hybrid of wholesale and direct lending channels within the services, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, mining and green industry sectors.

Some of the products Sefa offers:

Township and rural empowerment programmes (TREP):

TREP supports informal, micro and small enterprises and cooperatives in the rural and township economies. It provides blended finance and business development support to various sectors with a view of promoting their participation in the mainstream economy.

• The small enterprise manufacturing support programme (SEMSP):

SEMSP is mainly targeted at resuscitating and growing townships, rural towns and villages’ economies by providing financial and non-financial support to area-based small-scale manufacturers. This programme provides blended finance to enterprises in the manufacturing sector. Its primary objective is to assist early-stage businesses that play in the localisation market.

Direct lending products:

Sefa provides loans directly to small and medium-sized enterprises and cooperatives operating in all sectors of the economy.

The facilities range from R50 000 to R15-million.

Sefa also offers assistance to cooperative financial institutions, also known as CFIS.

These are deposit-taking cooperatives owned by a minimum of 200 or more members. They comprise cooperative banks registered in terms of the Cooperatives Banks Act and financial cooperatives regulated through an exemption notice issued in terms of the Banks Act.

These types of cooperatives provide savings and credit facilities to their members.