Equity Young Africa Works Kenya

Equity Bank’s essential purpose is to financially empower and elevate communities at the grassroots level throughout Africa. Its mission is to offer integrated financial services that socially and economically empower consumers, businesses and communities.
Equity Group Foundation (EGF) is a non-profit implementing foundation set up in 2008 as the social arm of Equity Group Holdings to transform the lives and livelihoods of people socially and economically by availing modern, inclusive financial services that maximize their opportunities.

This program is a partnership between Mastercard Foundation, Equity Bank and Equity Group Foundation (EGF) to enable access to finance for marginalized Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) owned by young people.
The program is open to young women and men (ages 18 to 35) who own MSME businesses across all sectors of the economy and have a passion for success. There are limited collateral requirements. It is accessible to young people across the country (all counties).

The program has the following activities:
• Enabling access to finance for qualifying underserved Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that are otherwise unable to access business financing due to various challenges.
• Provide financial literacy training, business development support, and entrepreneurship training to MSME owners (entrepreneurs) via classroom and digital channels to support their loan applications and provide financing (loans).
• Working with business development service providers to provide tailored business development support to entrepreneurs who receive loans at affordable costs.
• Train and appropriately incentivize Equity Banks’s credit officers to assess, disburse, and manage loans to MSMEs effectively.