Kenya - Commercial Bank of Africa Limited

The present project relates to extend a financial package of up to USD 90 million to Commercial Bank of Africa, Kenya (CBA). This financial package will be used for: i) on-lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in various sectors of the Kenyan economy and to fund infrastructure projects and ii) supporting CBA’s trade finance activities particularly for the benefit of its SME and local corporate clients. Indeed, these SMEs, which play a key role in the Kenyan economy in terms of job and income generation and are considered to be the basis of Kenya's future industrialization process, face a number of challenges. These include: insufficient access to affordable financing, constraining regulatory environment for businesses, and limited access to modern scalable and affordable technologies. Moreover, the proposed Financial Package is well aligned with the country strategy and complements the efforts of the Kenyan Government (“GoK”) in supporting the development of local corporates and the SME sector.