Finance-Trust-Kayunga-Branch-520x397

Despite immense improvement in financial inclusion over the past decade owed to increased digital financial services especially mobile money and development of more customer centric products. This improvement however has been skewed to mainly Urban centers (as documented in the Finscope 2018 Topline findings 2018) yet majority of Uganda’s population lives in rural areas. The high cost of providing financial services in rural areas often means that formal financial institutions lack the incentive to penetrate these areas as well as the ability to mitigate the perceived operational risks. The increase in financial inclusion has also been skewed to the men since leaving out the women who are more likely to be involved in running small businesses in both urban and rural settings. To address this gap, FTB, having began as Uganda’s Women’s Finance and Credit Trust Ltd has progressively over the years provided tailored financial services geared towards improving rural based, low-income SMEs with focus on women financing needs especially for SMEs. The feasibility study therefore focused on extending financial services to the largely excluded rural population with a focus on addressing women constraints to accessing financial services.

FRIENDS Consult