Call for CVs International SME Banking Specialist Business Development Services Support Project (BDSSP) – Egypt
The Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) is leading a consortium serving as the Canadian Executing Agency for the Business Development Services Support Project in Egypt funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
ACCC is currently seeking submissions from qualified candidates, with international experience for this short-term consultancy on SME Banking for its Business Development Service Support Project (BDSSP) presently being implemented in Egypt. The assignment would involve a mission to Cairo Egypt with a proposed deployment in May 2007. Actual dates for the assignment will be confirmed in discussions with the consultant. Deadline for submissions is April 23, 2007.
Background on the Assignment:
The Business Development Services Support Project (BDSSP) is a 6 year CIDA funded Project. Its main objective is to enhance the SME sector in Egypt through the BDS model. The Project’s direct target clientele are mainly organisations that facilitate and provide demand-driven business development services on a fee-for-services basis to Small and Medium Enterprises. (BDSSP is not targeting micro-enterprises). Cross-cutting issues are integrated in all project activities and project results are gender equality, protecting children at work, and environment.
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The Project has identified a SME need and opportunity to work with commercial financial institutions to facilitate SME access to finance. Facilitating access to finance to SMEs is a win-win situation. The Egyptian SME sector, with its size and business potential represents a unique opportunity for banks. In turn, the banks’ financing constitutes a major driving force for the growth and development of the SME sector.
In recent years, the Egyptian Banking sector has undergone structural reforms to improve its performance and strengthen banking regulations and supervision. Interventions led by the Egyptian Central Bank’s governor, included revising capitalization levels which led to several mergers between banks and the acquisition of less performing banks that could not achieve required capitalization levels, mainly by foreign banking entities. To decrease the presence and power of the public sector banks in the financial markets, two of the biggest public sector banks, Bank Misr and Banque du Caire merged into one entity, while Bank of Alexandria was acquired by San Paulo Bank of Italy in a deal that exceeded $ one billion. On the whole, the announced plan by the Central Bank of Egypt is to decrease the number of banks operating in Egypt from 52 banks to 35 within the coming few years. The Egyptian Banking sector is fully supervised by the Central Bank of Egypt and is compromised of private, joint venture, foreign and public sector banks.
During the past two years, one or more banks have tried to pilot SME banking in the Egyptian market, nevertheless their experience is still very fresh. Other banks claim that they serve SMEs, without really adapting their operations or systems to cater for SME needs. On the other hand, microfinance has achieved lots of successes during the past fifteen years, since it was first introduced into Egypt during the late eighties. It is mainly public sector banks like Banque du Caire and National Bank for Development that have been actively engaged in microfinance and have gained a wide base of microfinance clientele. Maximum credit ceiling did not exceed LE 10,000 (less than US$2000) with a revolving credit line. The success of the micro finance experience in Egypt is based on studying the needs of the microfinance clientele and then designing systems, procedures and services that suited them. All this was complemented by training the credit officers to become experts in dealing with microfinance clients. Though commercial banks are profit driven, yet the sustainability of the experience of dealing with microfinance clients over the past years now, proves that it pays back to serve the micro clients and indicators reflect that the SME market would be even more profitable and lucrative to the Egyptian Banks, if the right approach was adopted.
The BDSSP has previously commissioned a local study to assess the status of SME lending in Egypt and identify potential partner banks from the Egyptian banking sector that would be interested in cooperating with the BDSSP to introduce SME banking into its operation. The selected consultant will have access to this study and other relevant reports once the assignment is launched. As a result, the Project is exploring the possibility of partnering with an Egyptian commercial bank (National Bank for Development) which has a long and successful history in the field of microfinance. The partnership would involve assisting the bank with technical assistance to pilot SME banking in one or more of its 30 branches and encourage microfinance bank clientele to graduate into SMEs. The NBD’s current microfinance client base reflects their credit history and could partially replace the function of a credit bureau which does not currently exist in Egypt.
Assignment objectives:
The objectives of the mission are to introduce successful and practical international experiences on SME lending to the Egyptian banking community and to explore the viability and requirements of establishing SME lending/banking pilot(s) with commercial banks in Egypt to better serve both male and female small and medium enterprise owners. The BDSSP’ defines SME target beneficiaries as those employing from 6 to 50 employees whereas the Government of Egypt currently defines small businesses as 5 or more employees and medium 49 to 200 employees. (It is not the intent of this assignment to focus on micro enterprise lending.)
Scope of expected services:
The international SME banking consultant is expected to work closely with a small team of Egyptian banking professionals. This core team will consist of:
A free lance Egyptian Banking consultant who will:
- Assist the international consultant in accessing the needed background on the Egyptian Banking sector including legislative and regulatory information. - Accompany the international consultant in meetings and interviews as needed - Provide complementary input and analysis as required
A team of bankers who will:
- Provide the consultant with needed information on the potential partner bank - Provide needed information on the current Egyptian banking sector - Participate in discussions and working sessions as needed
On the other hand, the international consultant is expected to share his/her knowledge and experience about international SME banking with technical team and key players in small groups or seminars. The consultant is expected to become familiar with the Egyptian Banking environment through these discussions, sessions, interviews or associated research. Draft and final reports will be prepared with input from the team outlining a planning and implementation framework that would be acceptable to the banking community to pilot this initiative in Egypt.
Consultant Tasks: Before arrival in Egypt:
- Conduct desk research to gain an understanding of the Egyptian SME lending context. The Egyptian technical support team will provide background information data prior to the consultant mission to Egypt. - Prepare a preliminary work plan and schedule for mission activities - Based on the consultant’s experience in the field of SME banking, prepare presentations, collect professional material and information to be presented to a group of banking professionals in Egypt who are interested to pilot SME Banking in one of Egypt’s commercial banks. Areas to be explored include: - Practical international models for SME lending that might be applied in Egypt. - Banking perspectives reflecting on the definition of SMEs and related categorization as well as allocated credit ceilings. - Lending practices and the optimum combination of cash – flow based lending and collateral-based lending to serve this category of clients. - Description of widely used systems and procedures in SME lending. - Gather evidence of the success of SME lending in other countries clarifying repayment rates, profitability levels and percentage of non performing loans to validate its financial viability. - Main elements and conditions needed for the profitability potential of SME lending based on other countries experiences - Successful products and services that could be introduced to enhance SME lending and the associated conditions necessary to implement those services. - Applicable lending policies to SMEs - The concept of SME lending versus SME banking, including the importance of providing other financial services to SMEs. - Description of an enabling environment for SME lending and the role of the Central banks / other supervisory institutions in providing such environment. - Developing a presentation to share the consultant’s international knowledge and experience about SMEs with a selected audience of local banking professionals and the support team.
After arrival in Egypt:
- Hold targeted interviews / meetings with key players in the Banking sector. - Hold a seminar to share the consultant’s international knowledge and experience about SMEs with a selected audience of local banking professionals and support team. - Develop a first hand economic cost benefit analysis for piloting SME Banking in Egypt - Develop a detailed implementation plan for piloting SME lending in Egypt highlighting risks and challenges and assess and identify missing information to complete the plan according to timelines acceptable to the banking establishment.
If the implementation of a pilot SME Banking / lending in one of the Egyptian Banks proves viable, this mission might be followed by other missions on the actual implementation of the pilots.
Deliverables include:
- Pre mission preliminary work plan and schedule for BDSSP discussion and approval - Awareness and information gathering sessions / seminars and interviews conducted with selected key players - Debriefing session with key stakeholders prior to end of mission to outline and validate the consultant’s preliminary findings. - Comprehensive report prepared with recommendations to implement SME banking pilots in Egypt that address the above issues. (Due 10 days after completion of the field mission.)
Anticipated Level of Effort: 23 days plus travel (it is anticipated that the consultant will spend 7 person days on the pre / post mission assignment while his/her mission to Cairo will be for 14 person days). Below is the breakdown of the Level of Effort.
Pre-mission preparation at home country – 7 days Meetings with financial institutions and BDSSP technical team – 5 days Work with partner bank – 7 days Seminar – 1 day End of mission Report – 3 days Travel – 2 days Total = 25 days
Reporting relationship: The consultant will report to the Project Field Manager or delegate.
Consultancy profile - Education and training relevant to the assignment. - Preferably a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant entitled to work in Canada, but open to other nationalities. - Practical experience in or with a SME banking / lending institution preferably in Canada (or other developed economies), and experience in or with SME banking in developing countries. - Knowledge of and experience with implementing and assessing SME banking and lending initiatives in a developing country context. - Experience in microfinance would be an added asset. - Excellent communication, facilitation and presentation skills. - Experience in a developing country would be a definite asset. - Working language is English but Arabic would be an asset
Deadline for submissions is April 23, 2007. Candidates are requested to submit:
- CV demonstrating the individual’s skills and experience relevant to the assignment. - Proposed daily fee rate, supported by examples of recent fee/compensation rates. - Accommodation, transportation and per diems will be reimbursed in accordance with CIDA regulations - References, including phone/fax/email coordinates
Interested candidates, please email your submission by April 23 2007 to: Debbie McDonald, Project Officer Business Development and Technical Co-operation Division Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) Suite 200, 1223 rue Michael St. North Ottawa, Ontario K1J 7T2 Tel.: (613) 746-2222 ext. 3108; Fax: (613) 746-6721 E-mail: Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted.
