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Oliver Kazunga, Acting Business Editor 

THE Zimbabwe Microfinance Fund (ZMF) will this year diversify its portfolio by providing loans directly to players in the Small-to-Medium Enterprises sector as part of a broader scope to foster economic development.

In the past, ZMF has been providing on-lending capital to Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) who then provided loans to SMEs to boost their operations. ZMF managing director Mr Brian Zimunhu told Business Chronicle yesterday that while lending to MFIs remains their core business, his organisation will this year introduce direct lending to players within the SMEs sector “While our core business remains lending MFIs with 60 percent of our funding going towards the sector, we are also planning to introduce a number of other products where we are looking at lending to SMEs directly,” he said. 

Mr Zimunhu said his company was looking at advancing loans ranging from ZW$100 000 to  ZW$500 000. “Lending directly to SMEs has been necessitated by the desire to promote economic development. We have realised that players in the financial services sector have contributed significantly to economic development by providing loans to SMEs and we want to complement this by directly lending to bigger SMEs in particular sectors like renewable energy, agri-business as well as education where we will give edu-loans,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Association of Microfinance Institutions (Zamfi) reported in its analysis report of the microfinance sector for the third quarter ended September 30, 2019 that credit-only MFIs sector’s total loan book improved marginally to $352,2 million from $316,3 million the previous quarter. Zamfi indicated that it was worried about the marginal increase in total loan book when compared to a growth rate of $66,2 million during the March-June 2019 quarter. — @okazunga.