Manaf Al-Menaifi

KUWAIT: Executive Manager Business Banking at Kuwait Finance House (KFH), Manaf Al-Menaifi said that the credit limit of the Business Banking specialized in financing the small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs is about KD 300 million, indicating that Business Banking department at KFH offers services to over 2285 customers.

He added that the SMEs portfolio achieved a 7 percent growth of customers as of end H1 2016, reiterating that KFH aspires to increase the number of customers to 2400 by the end of 2016 in line with KFH's strategy to show interest in the SMEs segment for its significant role in the development. The SMEs form the nucleus for mega projects, while they offer numerous job opportunities for the Kuwaiti youth with low cost of capital. Also the SMEs play important role in substantially using the local resources, while contributing to the support of self-sufficiency in some goods and services that serves in the reduction of imports and improving exports. Moreover, the SMEs effectively contribute in national product support.

Al-Menaifi praised the efforts of the public and private sectors in supporting this key segment that assumes active role in the national economy. He said that KFH provides a broad range of products and financing services developed to meet SMEs needs. KFH has been mapping out and supervising the relationship with the National Fund for Small and Medium Enterprise since 2004 for the best interest of the customers of this segment.

KFH uniquely offers the health and cooperative marketing product through which KFH purchases goods for the sake of selling them to cooperative societies and thus giving money to the dealer without having to wait for collecting the money from the cooperative societies as KFH directly collects from them. KFH offers services of salary transfers, issuance of credit cards, purchasing through POS and transferring to SMEs owners. KFH works tirelessly to address the SMEs requirements, especially that KFH's Business Banking views the relationships with SMEs to be best categorized as a partnership.