Comprehensive financial partner for SMEs

Selim R. F. Hussain, Managing Director & CEO, BRAC Bank 

Since CMSMEs lack collateral, most banks are usually discouraged from providing them with financing support due to the risks involved in unsecured credit. Despite this challenge, BRAC Bank, the country's sole SME-focused bank, remains steadfast in its commitment to facilitating easy access to credit for grassroots entrepreneurs.

Today, BRAC Bank stands as the largest collateral-free CMSME financier in Bangladesh, with over 85% of our loans granted without any mortgage. Since our inception in 2001, we have disbursed BDT 154,694 crore to approximately 15 lakh CMSME customers. However, our ambition extends beyond mere lending; we aspire to be the comprehensive financial partner for grassroots entrepreneurs.

We offer transactional and cash management services, foreign trade financing facilities, and a wide range of products tailored to meet the financial needs of CMSMEs. We facilitate market access by connecting CMSMEs with each other to streamline their supply chains, thereby expanding their market opportunities.

BRAC Bank provides extensive banking and financing support to women CMSMEs through its women banking proposition 'TARA'.

BRAC Bank operates 457 SME unit offices, 45 sub-branches, 1,080 agent banking outlets, and 330 ATMs nationwide to cater to the daily banking needs of CMSME customers. This extensive network ensures a physical presence in many rural and remote areas, bringing banking services closer to the doorsteps of SMEs. With over 3,000 dedicated Relationship Officers (ROs) engaged in SME banking services, we build relationships and cater to all banking requirements of CMSMEs. Sixty per cent of our total SME loans are disbursed in rural areas, achieving the highest rural penetration among local private banks.

CMSMEs seek a more hands-on, relationship-based approach requiring a substantial amount of investment and ecosystem creation through human resources, a model BRAC Bank adopts, from which others can draw inspiration.

We are exploring a more simplified and convenient onboarding process to provide easy access to banking financial services for CMSMEs by leveraging technology. BRAC Bank is actively investing in digitisation to reduce manual interventions as much as possible within the current regulatory framework. To meet the banking needs of CMSMEs, we have introduced the Digital Loan Origination Solution for CMSMEs, facilitating ASTHA & Corpnet for convenient B2B transactions. These digital capabilities have ensured faster, cheaper, more convenient, and easily accessible banking services for CMSMEs.

The key policy reform agenda that could be immediately addressed by the government and Bangladesh Bank would be: Revision of existing definitions of CMSMEs; informal micro-merchants should be considered under the CMSME sector; simplification of required legal documentation for CMSME loans, which can be based on loan ceilings; immediately introduce e-KYC for CMSMEs, which are proprietorship concerns, to expedite onboarding; enable a Credit Guarantee Scheme for all CMSMEs and simplify the enrolment process; online issuance of trade licenses for a 5-year tenure, with platforms API-driven for use by banks and financial institutions; Bangladesh Bank's CIB records should be instantly accessible to banks through API connectivity, and a Credit Bureau should be established for the MFI customer base; and implementation of paperless digital signatures instead of wet signatures.