The SME Finance Forum (SMEFF) is a part of the G20’s Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion.
SMEFF is a platform for sharing knowledge in small and medium enterprise finance, for promoting best practices, and for collecting data to help set standards in this field. SMEFF has been created because improving financing for SMEs is critical for creating and sustaining jobs around the world. Hosted at IFC, and supported (so far) by the governments of the UK, Korea, and the Netherlands, SMEFF’s activities are likely to include:
- Data collection and benchmarking
- Case studies
- Other research reports into the state of SME Finance
- Policy/regulatory advocacy
- Workshops/conferences/seminars
- Discussion Groups
- Innovation support (currently administering the G20 SME Innovation Challenge, supporting 13 promising new initiatives world-wide)
- Other knowledge and expertise brokering
SMEFF has just opened for business, centered around a web platform which can be reached at www.smefinanceforum.org
The new head of SMEFF is Matthew Gamser. He can be reached at MGamser@ifc.org Web: www.ifc.org – Matt Gamser recently spoke at the APEC conference on financial inclusion at Shanghai, China. His presentation can be viewed at: Fin Inclusion June 2012 Shanghai Presentation
The IFC is spearheading the World Bank’s program on financial infrastructure development. It is responsible for advancing development of payment systems, collateral registers and credit reporting.
BIIA fully supports this new activity and participates in many of the IFC forums and conferences.
