Eco.business fund has identified ways to boost Family bank’s “agricultural lending capacity” including a tailored training on lending to the agricultural sector.
Chairperson of the development facility, sub-Saharan Africa, Lisa Stahl said, the program is in line with their technical assistance mandate, which is to build staff capacity and implement credit assessment technologies.
“The agricultural sector is key in addressing climate change mitigation but has often been viewed by the banking industry as too risky, which finds us in a scenario where too little attention is given to such a vital sector,” Ms. Stahl said.
More than 100 staff of Family Bank across different departments; including business development, relationship management, and credit analysis, have now been trained on various topics such as agricultural value chain finance, risk management and climate smart agriculture.
The trainings took place in different Family Bank branches, namely Embu, Nakuru, Nairobi, Kericho, and Mombasa, with a quarter of all trainees being women.
“Our focus has been to accelerate businesses to the next level by extending credit. However, to better achieve this we are committed to driving value to critical sectors of our economy such as the agricultural sector. Therefore, by offering such capacity-development trainings to our staff, we are equipping them with further technical expertise to better expose agribusiness entrepreneurs to the growth opportunities that lie in the sector,” said Family Bank Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Mbithi.
