Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank) has launched an e-commerce portal for small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in the country. The portal tagged “The SME MarketHub” was unveiled in Lagos at the weekend.
The e-commerce and business directory portal is part of GTBank’s strategy to empower and support Nigerian SMEs and also contribute to the growth and development of the Nigerian economy.
Commenting on the innovation, Managing Director of GTBank, Segun Agbaje said: “There is no getting away from the fact that economic conditions remain challenging for small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria.
“It is, however, vital that this integral sector of the economy gets all the support it needs to drive growth and development.”
E-commerce is widely acknowledged as a powerful tool for fully enhancing business possibilities as it opens up a world of businesses to customers and a world of customers to businesses.
The speed, efficiency and convenience with which transactions can be completed are distinct advantages that e-commerce has over traditional means of transacting business.
“With the introduction of the SME Market Hub, the bank said it has provided SME operators a platform that allows small and medium business owners create and maintain online presence and expand their business frontiers to new markets and millions of buyers that are online,” he said.
He said that a percentage of every transaction carried out on the SME MarketHub would be committed to the bank’s “Autism Fund” dedicated to the building of an “Autism Resource
“About five years ago one of the big criticisms of GTBank was that it was not a retail bank. We had 250,000 customers and today we have 5.5 million retail customers.
“So when we choose to do something, we really sink our teeth in it. We believe again that the next frontier for us is the SME space again I’m going to start with the criticism of banks towards SME,” he said.
