Jislah Financial Services Strategy: Executive Auto Financing, Corporate Loans and Microlending
“We have put a hold on the project and construction financing. That is big money and it takes a longer period of time to recoup the investment. Since last year, we have not done any project financing. The area we address now is asset acquisition. We are focusing on executive auto financing. It is in the same auto industry, but we are focusing more on financing for the corporate leaders and corporate bosses.”
“We have put a hold on the project and construction financing. That is big money and it takes a longer period of time to recoup the investment. Since last year, we have not done any project financing. The area we address now is asset acquisition. We are focusing on executive auto financing. It is in the same auto industry, but we are focusing more on financing for the corporate leaders and corporate bosses.”
“The default rate is very low. The SME happens to be our key area so we cannot leave it. Every year, over 50% of our income comes from loans to businesses. Corporate loans – loans to institutions, loans to companies – are the largest part of our portfolio. Now, we have just introduced and brought on board a new division which we call the microlending division. We live in an economy where over 60% of customers are “non-banked,” meaning they do not use banks. They have little money to do their trading. The concept of microfinance is good, but those who are leading it may not have the right experience. If that market is addressed in a different way, we could be able to meet the needs of the vulnerable. To go public, we must also offer a social intervention. Our new microlending division serves the social intervention and addresses the need. It will be a win-win. It is not for free, we are going to make profit. We have assembled people with a lot of experience in that sector who are going to lead in that area. We intend to put some good resources into that. We will start with about 2 million Cedis and then see their returns. This will be totally new to the portfolio. I am excited about it because we will be able to get a lot of joy out of changing a vulnerable person’s life. I am really looking forward to that. We started about six months ago and we had to suspend it for a month or two to tweak it. We are now going to start from October 1st and we have the right team onboard to take it to the next level,” says Emmanuel T. Obeng, CEO of Jislah Financial Services.