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Sector Assessment & Market Development


Ayani works with donors and inclusive finance stakeholders to reduce barriers to financial and livelihood opportunities, especially in rural areas. Our services are designed to produce sustainable foundations for sector and market development, in particular by:

- Identifying bottlenecks preventing access to affordable and relevant financial services

- Assessing, mapping and optimizing the linkages existing within rural communities

- Supporting sector-wide dialogue to advance economic and financial opportunities

- Focusing on innovations that are particularly impactful for vulnerable groups

- Providing technical support for new markets entry and new product development





EXPERTISE


Ayani's expertise in sector assessments and market development covers:

- Ecosystem assessment

- Value chain mapping

- Linkages within local economies

- Design of market-led interventions and new products

- Support to Bankers Associations / Microfinance associations

- Facilitating national inclusive finance strategy / dialogue

- Supporting institutions in SME banking, meso finance, upscaling and downscaling


SIGNATURE PROJECTS

Learn more about Ayani's work in this area:



Financial inclusion & MSME development in Sierra Leone

Ayani has played a central role as a capacity builder in the inclusive financial sector in Sierra Leone. Besides financial institution capacity building this has entailed meso and macro-level support, including a baseline assessment, an in-depth study on access to finance and rural finance, support in branchless banking guideline development, mobile money scoping, followed by product development, professional association establishment, credit bureau linking, financial education strategy development, well as briefs on financial education, over-indebtedness and agricultural finance. As a result, MSME financial service providers in Sierra Leone withstood the Ebola disaster better than Liberia. Recently Ayani also developed on how inclusive finance service providers could be prepared for and mitigate external risk.

To read more:

https://www.cordaid.org/...ne_Mobile_Money_Transfer_Market_Study_PHB_for_Cordaid_DEF.pdf

Leasing technical expertise & business advisory to the National Bank of Ethiopia

Ayani assisted IFC during a diagnostic and implementation project to support leasing reform and initiatives to increase interest level, awareness participation of all stakeholders in leasing business development.

Ayani worked with the training center of the NBE to organize a series of workshops for the broad range of stakeholders of a flourishing leasing industry, including leasing companies, bankers, SMEs, regulators, etc. In particular, Ayani developed and provided training for managers of LeaseCos and suppliers, and support their understanding of building partnerships. This included: Leasing basics, Business Planning, Understanding your market, Product Design, Credit Strategy and Policy, Risk Management, Collections and Recovery, Write off, Structuring the Team, Funding Strategy, Financial Projections, Underwriting and structuring, Portfolio Management, Legal Agreement and Documentation, Accounting and Finance, Tax and MIS. Furthermore, a complete package of general information on leasing was prepared to introduce interested SMEs to LeaseCos to learn about financing.









Change management, SME credit process re-engineering and training in Ghana

On this IFC-funded technical assistance to UT Bank, a leading SME finance provider in Ghana, Ayani provided a resident technical advisor through a 150-day change management exercise oriented to better position the bank to reach the SME target market.

Support started with an institutional diagnostic and review of existing strategy, determining baseline, market study and technical assistance implementation plan. The advisor provided day to day coaching to bank staff through a change management approach and advised the bank’s management team, as they introduced new approaches in use of market information, defining market segments, improving SME product process and procedures and highlighting risks and internal controls related to the off-site operations required with SME lending. The assistance enhanced the customer culture, credit risk technology, SME product policy and procedures, human resource capacity and organization.

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