African SMEs’ Performance and Behaviors during COVID-19

- “It was easier to open paypal for online payments. Also ecocash payments were easier with personal line”. - “I didn’t have the personal means”.

- “To have a better fnancial outlook for our company”. - “Still in the process of applying for a business account”.

From those who responded by having two types of accounts (35 respondents), we fnd the reasons for managing company fnancials through two types of accounts as follows:

Figure 2.4: Two types of accounts

For those who wrote in other (6 respondents) some of the collected responses were:

- “It was simpler and easier to get started using the personal accounts. Now we are transitioning to company accounts, but some existing clients continue to pay into the personal accounts”. - “Daily work stuf and operating (is simpler this way)”. - “I already have my personal account and I will shortly open a corporate account to be able to deal properly with banks, donors, projects and programs on behalf of the company and to make a clear separation between my personal assets and those of the company”. - “Most of our payments are from walk in payments from vendors in the form of cash”. - “Accessing cash from the bank if we had made deposits became a hassle hence, we opted to operate them separately”. - “The bank wouldn't open a MasterCard account in the company name, and we needed to pay for Facebook and Google Ads”. - “Receiving nontaxable income is much easier to receive on a personal account”.

Financial Institutions & the Financing Environment

In this section, we attempt to fnd out how fnancial institutions facilitate or hinder the access to fnance for African SMEs. The following chart answers the question: “In general, I fnd that fnancial institutions are not interested in dealing with SMEs”.

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