Women entrepreneurs have fallen far behind others in getting access to SME loans over the years though the overall SME financing keeps rising.
According to data available with the central bank, the women entrepreneurs could manage only Tk 52.65 billion or 3.37 per cent of the total SME loans disbursed during the last fiscal year (FY).
They are losing out to other competitors in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector allegedly due to lack of their knowledge and the complex loan procedures, banking sources said.
According to Bangladesh Bank (BB), the disbarment of total SME loan in the FY 2017-18 was about Tk 1.56 trillion while the overall SME financing kept going up over the years.
BB General Manager (SME and Special Programmes Department) Shaikh Md. Salim told the FE at his office recently that the banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) will have to increase the SME loan disbursement target from existing 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the total target by 2021.
The banks and NBFIs could not yet achieve even the 10 per cent financing target, he said, adding that they were financing only 3 per cent of the total portfolio.
A good number of women entrepreneurs are not getting loans due to lack of prompt responses by the banks and NBFIs while the organisations supporting the women entrepreneurs are also not playing a proper role in this connection, said a senior executive of a bank.
In most cases, the women entrepreneurs cannot submit all the documents necessary to process a loan. So, the banks also do not sanction loans for them, he said.
A senior official of the BB said the central bank is now trying to push up the credit flow to the manufacturing and service sectors under its re-financing scheme. But the bank and NBFIs were still maintaining a very high level of lending to the trading sector.
Over 51 per cent of the total loans disbursed by the banks and NBFIs during the period went to the trading sector alone while the manufacturing sub-sector received 31.39 per cent.
But some measures taken by the central bank have changed the situation by now, said the central banker, adding that the BB is now attaching priority to small enterprises than the medium ones.
Meanwhile, an official said, the central bank is now emphasising on extending credits to the manufacturing and services sectors under its SMEs refinancing scheme through the banks and NBFIs.
The BB issued a circular in June last year asking the banks and NBFIs to gradually bring down the annual lending target for the trading sector to 35 per cent by 2021.
