Ok Tedi foundation partners with bank to help SMEs

By MAX ORAKA
THR Ok Tedi Development Foundation (OTDF) has partnered with MiBank to provide financial access to women in Western.
MiBank chief executive officer Tony Westaway said the agreement was to provide financial inclusion and access to people in Western, those involved in the small-medium enterprises (SME) programme.
“Our focus is to provide financial assistance particularly to women who face challenges and difficulties in accessing finance,” he said.
“We have a branch in Kiunga and Daru so we can provide financial services and tools for people in Western.”
In the past 10 years, he said only 15 per cent of MiBank accounts belonged to women. Now it has increased to 35 per cent.
“Women are important in society, and investing in them is like investing in national economic growth,” he said.
He said the Bank’s credit scheme was about K1.3 million which they aimed to provide on a revolving basis .
“And we will be providing an interest rate of 1.5 per cent per month to the customers,” he said.
OTDF executive manager programme services Andrew Balele Mari said the agreement was to empower women associations in North, Middle, and South Fly in Western. “The OTDF has been dealing with 158 villages in Western and they have established associations for those villages.
Middle Fly women and children association president Charlotte Mathews said the associations welcomed the move as they had been facing challenges in accessing finance for their small businesses.
“It was actually our cry for financial access, as most would understand the struggles of small businesses with access, to financing” she said.