Finscope MSME Survey in 2022 revealed that 40% of MSME owners in Zimbabwe were banked and 3 percent of MSME owners are financially excluded from either formal or informal financial services

The Finscope Survey carried out in Zimbabwe in 2022 was a major eye-opener as to the extent of financial exclusion in the MSME sector in Zimbabwe:

• 3 percent of MSME owners are financial excluded from either formal or informal financial services;
• 40 percent utilise products/services from commercial banks and mainly cash related transactions;
• Up to 42 percent utilise the informal financial sector and
• Savings are mainly kept at home and borrowing is predominantly from family/friends.

Having read the survey, we took it upon ourselves to develop a lending model to enable us to provide credit to the MSME sector. The model had to address the main barriers to financial inclusion cited such as :

• Lack of enough money/capital
• Long Distance from banks.
• Lack of required formality and documentation such as address and financial records and
• High bank charges

Therefore taking into consideration the challenges above.

MMF decided to focus on financially excluded;

• MSMEs
• Women
• Youths