Coca Cola has partnered with Absa Bank Kenya, Amref Health Africa and the Women Enterprise Fund (WEF) to launch the “Open Like Never Before” initiative. The initiative is meant to support small and micro business outlets across the country to recover and reopen after being negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that saw most of them lose revenue and even close.
The support is targeting 18,000 trade outlets across the country who will receive personal protective equipment including masks and face shields, handwashing jerrycans, sanitizers, and garden furniture. These are meant to enable them to adhere to the required social distancing guidelines. Towards this, Coca Cola has committed Ksh. 125 Million that is meant to support their trade partners, waste collectors, eateries, restaurants, bars and kiosks.
Amref Kenya on their part will be providing health and safety training to the traders and their staff so as to help them ensure that they are able to adhere to the government opening and operating guidelines. They will do this via an easy to understand and adopt training curriculum and application of a set standard of operating procedures.
Absa Bank being the financing partner, will support affected businesses with revolving short-term working capital financing to bridge the liquidity gap between inventory purchase and receipt of payment from their customers. They will also offer insurance and asset-based financing to the businesses. Also, under their SME Wezesha Biashara proposition, they will offer businesses unsecured loans of up to Ksh. 10 Million as well as LPO financing and invoice discounting of up to Ksh.50 Million.
The sales process at Coca Cola has been fully automated, this has enabled them get data on the businesses which have been hit by the pandemic and hence those that need help. Absa Bank will use this data to help guide credit scoring and determine how best to support these businesses financially.
Absa Bank also announced the introduction of a new Absa One Account with no minimum balance requirement and no monthly fees. The account offers unsecured loans of up to 6 million shillings for individuals and 10 million shillings for businesses. It also offers rewards of 0.5% cashback on all ATM and debit card transactions. It comes with a multicurrency prepaid card with up to 8 major currencies and gives you access to Absa Connect lifestyle events among other benefits.