By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Nigerian entrepreneurs have been advised to connect their businesses to others within Africa through the Ecobank Single Market Trade Hub.
The Ecobank Single Market Trade Hub is a cutting-edge digital platform designed to respond to the evolving trading needs of SMEs and corporates within Africa’s single market.
The hub, which is live, connects traders across Africa, within the 1.4 billion-people single-market framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It also serves as an exchange and information repository for cross-border commerce.
The financial institution disclosed that over 4,000 businesses, especially those in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector in 33 countries, are already connected and are benefiting from the synergies that the hub provides.
The Executive Director for Commercial Banking at Ecobank Nigeria, Mr Kola Adeleke, the platform provides a gateway to explore and access continental trade opportunities across Africa, and that the bank has invested in making the platform more convenient to use through digital customer onboarding and more cost-effective through access to better pricing.
“AfCFTA has created an immense opportunity for African businesses, and as the pan-African bank with the most extensive coverage of Africa, Ecobank is perfectly placed to provide trade, information and payment solutions to support SMEs and corporates seeking to capitalise on the single market,” he said in Lagos.
On the specific benefits of the trade hub, Mr Adeleke noted that it provides Trade and Payment Solutions, as a gateway into Ecobank’s full range of digital products, including trade finance services, cash management solutions, domestic and cross-border payments and collections, investment banking, Capex financing, and more.
Beyond that, it also functions as an online match-making platform, enabling importers and exporters to create their company profiles, showcase their goods and services, source suppliers and connect with buyers and suppliers across Africa, he added.
He further said Ecobank, being an AfCFTA expert, uses the hub as a valuable repository of knowledge and information on AfCFTA to help SMEs and corporates familiarise themselves with the single market and ways to expand their trade into new African markets.
Mr Adeleke reiterated that only recently Ecobank Nigeria hosted the Adire Lagos Experience with over 100 Adire vendors, where the bank committed to profile the merchants on the trade hub and position them so that they will be able to export their products to other countries in Africa and beyond.
He noted that this would not only boost the export potential of the locally produced textile, leveraging AfCFTA but also support the merchants to build capacity, help them improve the quality of whatever they are producing for export purposes and ultimately ensure that Adire becomes an African brand with global acclaim.
Dipo Olowookere 
Modupe Gbadeyanka