SME Bank is exploring a collaboration with Algerian entities to promote entrepreneurship, start-ups and microenterprises, Aria Putera Ismail, CEO and president of SME Bank, told ISFI. The upcoming joint efforts follow Malaysia’s visit to Algeria last month to promote social entrepreneurship in the North African nation.
“SME Bank is actively considering the commencement of discussions during the current year, with a view to exploring potential collaborative endeavors in the subsequent year,” Aria Putera Ismail, CEO and president of SME Bank, told ISFI.
The bilateral meeting was led by Ewon Benedick, the minister of Malaysia’s Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperatives Development (MECD) and Yacine El Mahdi Oualid, Algeria’s minister of knowledge economy, start-ups and microenterprises.
“The two countries have agreed to explore sharing of best practices and experiences on SMEs and start-up policies and legal frameworks,” Aria shared.
The nations have also agreed to explore the facilitation of market access and business matching for SMEs and start-ups between the countries. The organization of a business forum is also in the talks.
According to Aria, Malaysia, through the MECD and its agencies, has offered to collaborate with the Algerian authorities on capacity development for Islamic banking, digital banking and cashless payments as well as entrepreneurship.
The upcoming collaboration will see Algeria learn from Malaysia about social entrepreneurship as well as the formalization of informal entrepreneurship including freelancers and gig workers.
It will also see Algerian entities collaborate with Malaysia on start-up development including through the soft lending program, Aria noted.
The Algerian entities involved in the joint effort are the National Bank of Algeria; Algeria’s state-owned start-up accelerator Algeria Venture; BEYN, a fintech start-up that partners with banks and financial institutions to deliver digital banking and mobile payment solutions; as well as impact-driven start-up accelerator Sylabs.
In addition to SME Bank, which was represented by its group chief corporate strategy officer, Dr Mohammad Hardee Ibrahim, the Malaysian delegation to Algeria also included Bank Rakyat Malaysia, which hopes to promote digital banking and cashless transactions in Algeria. The MECD agency, SME Corporation Malaysia, was also present.