CapitalPlus Exchange (CapPlus) has announced the winners of its 2022 Sales Champion Challenge in recognition of their exceptional demonstration of new mindsets and practices to increase lending to small businesses.
The Sales Champion Challenge is a competition among banks participating in the Financial Institution Resilience and Strengthening (FIRST+) programme which aims at strengthening financial institutions to enable them increase lending to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) as well as creating work opportunities for 60,000 Ghanaians, predominantly young women and men.
At the end of the 2022 challenge, the following individuals were announced as national champions: Obed Asiamah of Ahantaman Rural Bank PLC – first place; Ernest Gyau of Sefwiman Rural Bank PLC – second place; and Emmanuel A. Kissi Yeboah of Best Point Savings and Loans in third place.
Others, including Joseph Kwasi Nyamekye of Akuapem Rural Bank PLC, Thomas Kwame Piedu of Fiaseman Rural Bank PLC, and Mr. Samuel Nyarko of Mumuadu Rural Bank PLC, were named Sales Champions at their respective banks.
Eric Quao, a CapPlus representative, presenting the awards to the winners, said: “The Sales Champion Challenge initiative is designed to increase financial institutions’ lending to MSMEs, empowering businesses to grow and create meaningful jobs, especially for youth and women”. He added that it is one of many interventions to catalyse systemic changes to generate jobs by accelerating small business growth.
Obed Asiamah, who placed first in the Sales Champion Challenge, said: “The FIRST+ training has helped to systematise our operations. We have become more deliberate with customer service and, more than ever, our focus is on how to make our customers feel cared for as we serve them. This has impacted our loan volume, which has increased by 60 percent, with 80 percent of the new loans made to women-led MSMEs”.
Ernest Gyau, second place champion, also observed that as a result of the FIRST+ sales and marketing training, the bank’s total credit portfolio grew by 6 percent between October and December 2022, adding that after the training, the bank moved all its mobile bankers to the marketing unit to re-orient them as marketing officers to reach more customers and improve sales.
“These are lasting changes in the bank’s operations expected to improve lending performance,” he added.
Elsie Addo Awadzi, Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, who graced the awards ceremony, encouraged the participating FIRST+ financial institutions to take appropriate steps to increase access to financial services and products for MSMEs, particularly those owned by women, to support economic growth and job security for Ghanaians.
For her part, Rosy Fynn, Country Director at the Mastercard Foundation, stated that MSMEs make up 92 percent of Ghana’s businesses and account for 80 percent of all jobs, adding that: “The Mastercard Foundation is fully committed to job creation for young people, especially women. When financial institutions extend finance to small businesses, those businesses create new jobs that youths and women can fill, they benefit existing employees, and strengthen local communities and the country as a whole by generating dignified work with reliable incomes”.
CapitalPlus Exchange seeks to deliver sustainable solutions for economic opportunity, job creation, asset-building for social enterprises and women-owned businesses, and poverty alleviation while equipping financial institutions in emerging economies to deliver finance profitably for social impact. Established in 2004 in tandem with the ShoreCap equity fund, CapPlus also partners with impact investment funds to provide technical assistance alongside their capital investments in financial institutions.
