Archive of Author: bf-admin

By: Olivia Zank, CEO Recently I was reading an article by the excellent Jeff Schnurr from Jaza Energy about how we shouldn’t listen to what your clients are saying, but instead hear what they are telling us. Jaza, a rural electrification startup, found real product-market fit when they paid attention to what the market revealed to them, rather than what its participants were saying. That got me thinking about what...

With the world now in the throes of a historic recession, two things are clear: Firstly, we will need billions of dollars to revive global supply chains and safeguard jobs. Secondly, as mentioned last week by the Rwanda’s minister of finance Ndagijimana in a UNECA session on economic recovery, these billions must be set up intentionally so to reach SMEs. SMEs are typically caught between a rock and hard place...

At Benefactors, we provide factoring services that consist of advancing funds to businesses (mostly SMEs) based on their Accounts Receivables. In non-technical terms, we give money to SMEs that need immediate cash, against invoices that they issued to their clients who generally apply 45 to 90 days payment terms. Factoring products have proven to be great contributors to improving access to finance for SMEs in general and particularly in Africa...

Our lives have all changes radically in the last few days. Mornings in Kigali are very different than just a week ago - no rush hour traffic, no school children marching towards their classrooms, no cleaners sweeping the streets. For most businesspeople, it's a stressful time, wondering how long can we survive like this? For everyone though, the anxiety about the virus and Rwanda’s healthcare system's ability to treat everyone...

Benefactors CEO and Founder Olivia Zank has now been featured twice on CNBC Africa! She discusses how factoring can ease access to finance for SMEs. Factoring helps businesses to continue to grow in a market where cash flow problems are common. By providing an advance on overdue invoices, factoring enables SMEs to access funds when they are needed, so business can carry on. You can see the full two interviews...

We are extremely proud and honoured to have been selected the best tech startup in Rwanda by Seedstars World, amongst a group of nine really good startups. We're headed for the African regionals by the end of this year and the global pitch competition in Switzerland in April 2019 - not to mention the incredible journey we're about to embark on with the Seedstars community of global tech leaders and...

*This article appears in an extended form in the Rwandan Banker Magazine August 2018 edition* Supply chain finance (BeneFactors Ltd.'s key product) is a fundamental piece needed to achieve economic growth in the Rwandan context. This is because supply chain finance is a form of working capital, or liquidity, which, when not readily available as is the case in Rwanda, limits the extent to which other resources are utilised, hindering...

Most business owners prefer to receive payments as cash on delivery. Many companies, however, especially SME’s find themselves in a situation where their customers take weeks or even months to process a payment, yet they still have to pay for taxes, employees and honour other contracts. This makes it hard to grow your company when your receivables are stuck somewhere in your clients’ accounts. In Rwanda’s growing economy, business opportunities...

Business owners everywhere face the issue of clients who delay payments. To some extent that is part of doing business, especially as a small company in a developing country like Rwanda. However, there is a simple tool that managers can use to know who their best and worst clients are, allowing them to avoid the biggest payment headaches and ensuring that they can keep operating. This tool is the Invoice Ageing...