Keystone Bank, LCCI Partner To Develop MSMEs

Keystone Bank Limited has announced a partnership with the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry targeted to provide business consultancy services for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in Lagos State to help small businesses grow.

The Group Head, MSME & Value Chain Management of Keystone Bank, Helen Nwelle made this known in a statement at the launch of the inaugural edition of the LCCI’s annual SME Support Centre in Lagos.

According to her, “Keystone Bank is an SME-centric bank focused on delivering tailored MSME value offerings and that has continually spurred our involvement in programmes such as these.

“The SMEs are the bedrock of our economy and the LCCI SME Support Centre will provide a platform where the SMEs can meet seasoned consultants who will offer advisory services in areas of bookkeeping, capacity building, branding, and digital marketing, to enable them to remain competitive in the current business climate.”

Commenting on SMEDAN’s latest report, Nwelle said, “About 99% of the SMEs are in the micro sector, which means a lot of them are unstructured, making it difficult for them to access finance from banks and other funders.

“Therefore, this initiative will help empower the SMEs with the needed skills for bookkeeping and cash flow analysis to aid finance readiness.”

Speaking on the partnership, LCCI said that the programme is made to ease business consultancy services to the MSMEs as part of efforts to boost businesses of entrepreneurs in Lagos State and by extension, the rest of Nigeria.