New portal, FinFind, launched to help SME access funding

The minister of small business development, Lindiwe Zulu, launched a state backed online portal, FinFind, that is designed to help small enterprises across the country to access finance. By Ujuh

Zulu unveiled FinFind during an SME conference held in Sandton yesterday. The development of the portal was financed by U.S. Aid. It is designed to walk with SME’s to a state where they are easy to apply for finance.

FinFind has been positioned as a one stop shop with oodles of information and links to key enterprise finance institutions like the National Empowerment Fund (NEF), Industrial Development Zone and Small Enterprise Finance Corporation (SEFA).

Zulu said FinFind comes to fill a critical gap in the SME development space. The minister said it has been found that 80 percent of applications for finance by SMEs fail because of lack of knowledge of how to get a business into a finance ready state.

FinFind comes with a host of tools and services that will help SMEs through the steps that will get them into finance ready state. These include tools that help SMEs better organize their businesses and books. One particular tool in the portal is called SMEEasy which will help enterprises prepare their financials, invoices, payslips etc.

There is also AdminEasy tool which is an online training tool featuring a number of helpful themes. It has a dictionary that defines key business terms and concepts like collateral and working capital.

“We are appreciative to the U.S Aid for funding this initiative,” said Zulu.

U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard said South Africa has vibrant young people with a potential to create enterprises that can take on the world.

But there are a number of obstacles that stand in the way of enterprise development. One of the major obstacles is access to capital. FinFind should help address this challenge.

The portal can be accessed at: finfindeasy.co.za