Ecobank boosts financing for girls entrepreneurs to $780m

Ecobank Group, the main pan-African banking establishment, has introduced a landmark 194 per cent surge in lending to women-led companies, offering a document $780m in loans over the course of 2025.

The announcement, made in commemoration of Worldwide Ladies’s Day 2026, highlights an enormous scaling of the financial institution’s gender-focused initiatives. Whole lending to registered women-led enterprises rose from $265m in 2024 to $780m final 12 months, because the financial institution strikes aggressively to shut the $42bn financing hole that at present hampers feminine entrepreneurs throughout the continent.

Talking on the discharge of the Ecobank Gender Programme Report, the Group Chief Govt Officer of Ecobank, Jeremy Awori, emphasised that monetary inclusion is the first engine for Africa’s broader financial stability.

“Ladies entrepreneurs are among the many strongest drivers of native financial progress throughout Africa, but many nonetheless face obstacles to finance that restrict their capacity to scale.

“At Ecobank, we’re working to shut this hole by combining capital, functionality constructing and market entry by our pan-African platform,” Awori acknowledged.

The financial institution’s flagship Ellevate programme has been central to this progress. Since its inception in 2020, the initiative has expanded to 26 nations throughout West, Central, East, and Southern Africa. By the tip of 2025, the ecosystem supported over 103,000 registered ladies entrepreneurs, with 24,000 receiving specialised mentoring and non-financial enterprise assist.

A novel pillar of Ecobank’s technique is its concentrate on the “casual” sector, the small-scale merchants and artisans who kind the spine of African marketplaces however usually lack the documentation required for conventional financial institution loans. By means of the MAMA programme, launched in Ghana, the financial institution is offering a pathway for these ladies to construct monetary data.

“Many of those entrepreneurs generate sturdy each day money flows however stay excluded from conventional financing on account of restricted documentation,” the report famous.

“By supporting gradual enterprise formalisation… the programme permits ladies to transition into the formal economic system and acquire entry to bigger financing alternatives over time,” it added.

In simply its second 12 months, the MAMA initiative has enrolled 10,000 ladies and disbursed over $1.8m in subsidised credit score amenities.

The financial institution can be pioneering new monetary devices to maintain this momentum. In March 2025, Ecobank Ivory Coast launched a historic Gender Bond, the primary of its form within the WAEMU area. The bond was a runaway success, elevating XOF 11 billion ($18.2m) in simply 48 hours.

“The sturdy progress in lending to women-led companies displays each the demand from entrepreneurs and the affect of initiatives equivalent to Ellevate and our Gender Bond.

“These assist mobilise capital particularly to assist women-led progress,” Awori added.

Trying towards 2027, Ecobank confirmed plans to deepen its digital toolsets for feminine enterprise homeowners and strengthen partnerships with improvement finance establishments. By connecting these companies to the Ecobank Single Market Commerce Hub, the financial institution goals to make sure that “native” women-led companies can finally compete on a continental scale.

Ecobank is the main personal pan-African banking group, working in 34 sub-Saharan nations. With over 32 million prospects and 14,000 workers, it serves as a major gateway for funds, commerce, and funding throughout the continent.