Market Champions

14.01.2019

Market Champions

The Global Banking Alliance for Women (GBA) announced the laureates of its annual Women’s Market Champion Awards. This year, the winners' list includes also a bank from Armenia: ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK is awarded the honorable prize for its year-long programs to promote and support women’s engagement in the economic development of the country.

Text : Karine Ghazaryan    Photo : ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK

 

More than 70% of all household buying decisions in the world are made by women. That is to say, if our economy is tailored to meet customer needs, women are those who know the needs best. Consequently, they should be actively involved in production management process, shouldn’t they? Well, not in this case. The ratio of women’s engagement in production is only about 30% which creates a huge gap between the two modes of the world economy. Overcoming this gap will have a positive effect both in economic and in social sense. That is why ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK attaches particular importance to this problem.

ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK marked the year with the development of a whole range of projects aimed at encouraging women to participate more in production management. Along with unique funding opportunities, the bank designed a series of special solutions for its female partners. ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK specialists explained that the bank had had two ways to build its programs for women: the first was about setting a lower interest rate and special offers for certain financial instruments, which would for sure help businesses to save money; the second option implied providing the participants with something even bigger, something that could create value for their businesses. So, ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK created a unique strategy: the bank identified and provided a specific ready-to-apply solution for the given link of the chain of research-production-sales.

 

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Sharing Expertise

Along with constant modernization and digitalization of its own structures, ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK provides his clients with assistance in application of latest technologies. The bank organized business training on digital marketing for heads of partner SMEs, including SME female leaders whose share among the bank’s partners comprises around ½. This event is part of ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK’s years-long tradition of providing high-quality and completely free trainings for SMEs. More than 700 entrepreneurs and 470 companies have already benefited from this initiative.

 

For example, women entrepreneurs made use of outdoor advertising completely free of charge: the bank provided its own promotion platforms in prime locations of the city, including near the Opera theater, where the cost is usually not affordable for small or medium companies. The amount saved from low interest rates could not be enough to purchase advertisement at any prime location in Yerevan (the locations are not only too expensive, but usually taken month ahead). ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK’s marketing specialists also provided free consulting to participants, helping them to define the best location for effective promotion and boosting sales. Furthermore, earlier this year, a multi-stage event was held in the frames of which participants had a chance to attend a professional digital marketing training.

To reach businesswomen who could really benefit from such solutions, ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK used a set of criteria distinguishing the country’s economy in general. An enterprise should correspond to the criteria, but any woman business-owner can apply and become a participant of the project. The project will be continuous and will include financial mechanisms for providing easier access to capital, value-creating solutions as well as training and sharing expertise.

 

two women-ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK-prize

ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK won GBA’s annual Women’s Market Champion Awards

 

 

ACBA’s transparency and value-oriented approach was praised by The Global Banking Alliance for Women, a large consortium of financial institutions working for empowerment of women entrepreneurs. Established in 2000, GBA has built a wide-scale network reaching 135 countries throughout the globe. ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK is the only partner organization in South Caucasus.

 

Women in Business

ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, together with European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), developed a project for supporting women entrepreneurs both with funding and with high-quality consulting. “Women in Business” program offered funding opportunity with very low interest rates, and was aimed not only at helping acting entrepreneurs, but also at encouraging women to start their business.

 

In 2018, ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK became laureate of the GBA’s annual Women’s Market Champion Awards for “having launched a holistic program that strongly supports the Women’s Market in the last 12 months”. Not only the bank, but all the contributors are the champions when the goal is to overcome significant production-consumption gaps and strengthen the economy of Armenia. ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK emphasizes that they are not standing in front of women entrepreneurs, but walking next to them, supporting and helping them to build a prosperous future for everybody.