SINGAPORE - The good news is: The number of women-owned firms among new small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been increasing over the past five years. But the not-so-good news is: These companies are registering lower growth on average.
To help propel the growth of such companies, OCBC is launching a new programme that offers women entrepreneurs loans of up to $100,000 within the first two years of their start-ups’ incorporation, with no processing fees.
Participants can also attend educational workshops, and have opportunities to network and be mentored by their successful peers.
The OCBC Women Entrepreneurs Programme, which will be rolled out in April, is the first programme dedicated to women entrepreneurs by a Singapore bank, OCBC said in a statement on March 8.
The scheme is expected to benefit women-owned SMEs that OCBC works with – which make up 25 per cent of the more than 100,000 SMEs that OCBC works with.
Based on OCBC’s data, SMEs founded by women accounted for 23 per cent of newly incorporated businesses in 2018 and grew to 30 per cent in 2023.
“In 2023, women-owned SMEs made up half of the new businesses in education and retail, and over a third of new businesses in healthcare, business services and food and beverage.”
In general, women-owned SMEs registered lower growth of 20 per cent to 30 per cent in sales turnover within the first three years of operations, said OCBC, adding that those who tapped financing were able to bridge the gap.
Singapore’s economy and local businesses’ performances are determined not just by how firms fare in the domestic economy, but also how they fare in the regional economy, said Mr Linus Goh, OCBC’s head of global commercial banking.
“Therefore, it’s important to be able to put into place something that empowers women entrepreneurs to go beyond the borders of Singapore,” he said.
Mr Goh added: “Even in a developed market like Singapore, women-owned SMEs account for only about 30 per cent of all businesses here. We are committed to partnering women entrepreneurs to overcome the challenges they encounter so that they can accelerate the growth and realise their business ambitions.”
Women entrepreneurs juggle many responsibilities, including those outside of work – they often have to solve the problems at home, said Ms Sharon Lim, chairwoman of 3D fashion design platform Browzwear. OCBC had worked on financing solutions for her company.
“There are also some people in other countries who tend not to want to speak to female leaders,” she said, adding that OCBC’s new programme, with its focus on providing networking opportunities, will help level the playing field.
Browzwear, founded in 1999 in Singapore, helps streamline processes in the fashion industry by creating digital samples of apparel designs for fashion brands, using advanced 3D visualisation.
Ms Didi Gan, founder of medtech start-up N&E Innovations, said it was tough to secure financing in the early days of her business.
“The journey I had trying to raise funds as a woman entrepreneur wasn’t easy. Finding suitable talent and scaling up our business were also challenges we had to address,” she said. Her company has secured a green financing loan from OCBC.
N&E Innovations is a medtech company founded in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. It innovated an antimicrobial agent derived from cashew and banana food waste that can be applied on different surfaces to destroy bacteria and prevent them from reappearing. The company plans to expand to two other key regions and scale up production to meet growing market demands.
The OCBC Women Entrepreneurs Programme builds on a similar initiative managed by OCBC Indonesia.
Since the launch in 2020, OCBC Indonesia has supported about 1,400 women entrepreneurs running micro, small and medium-sized enterprises under its Women Warriors Programme with over $300 million in loans disbursed.
The programme will also be launched in Malaysia and Hong Kong in the future.
