E-Business
The Role of the Government in Supporting SMEs for Economic Growth
By Adewale A. Adeyipo
The Government at various levels has in one way or the other focused on the performance of SMEs for economic gains and growth. While some Government in developed economies like the US & China had formulated policies aimed at improving and empowering the growth and development of the SMEs.
In China, State Owned Enterprises (SOE) were transformed into small and medium Non-SOEs, which provided an opportunity for more SMEs to be established in China. This approach of Non-SOE promotion policy led to the development of more SMEs, which contributed to China’s economic growth.
They make up over 99% of all enterprises in China today, while the output value of SMEs accounts for at least 60% of the country’s GDP and generates more than 82% of employment opportunities in China. (According to China Statistical Yearbook).
However, other Government focus on assisting SMEs to grow through soft loans and other fiscal incentives to promote the socio-economic development of the country like poverty alleviation, youth unemployment, human capital development, and improve the social welfare of the people.
For example, in China, the World Bank offered support through enhancing access to finance for underserved micro and small enterprises with US$100 Million in IBRD financing, including both lending and technical assistance. Before the project began, about 20,000 micro and small loans were disbursed to MSME clients in 40 branches per year, but by the project’s completion at the end of 2010, more than 60,000 loans were issued in a year — tripling the supply of credit to small businesses. Over three years, US$2.3 billion in MSME loans were distributed through recipient Chinese financial institutions.
The Bigger Problem
Nigeria’s population, according to the UN, stands at approx. 200M with a median age of 18, which implies the Nigeria youth represents 42.54% of the total population. According to Trading Economics, the unemployment rate in the last 5 -10 years has continuously grown by 4% and was 23.1% as at the previous report generated in Q3 of 2018.
Also noteworthy is the fact that approx. 500,000 youths graduate yearly with 47% of these graduate’s unemployable (Jobberman Reports). The Government is consistently finding it challenging to match the skills of these graduates to the available jobs in the market which in turn puts more pressure on the nation’s dependency rate of 88.2% (Trading Economics).
One may suggest that to address this employability gap and high dependency rate is to engage our technical schools actively and also revisit the curriculum of our institutions. Many have argued on the suitability of the faculties responsible for transferring knowledge to the students in today’s VUCA world. Not so much about the technical understanding of it, but more on the practicality of the same knowledge outside the walls of the classrooms.
Sadly, the fact is that these institutions are not enough and ill-equipped. While the Government has only been able to establish 156 approved technical schools (NBTE Reports) across the 36 states with an average of 4 technical schools per state, these statistics show that the technical schools available can’t match the current population of Nigerian graduates (500,000/year).
How then can we engage unskilled laborers when providing jobs for graduates is still a major challenge? Can the Government establish more technical schools to accommodate the skilled and unskilled? (That’s a discussion for another day).
The World Bank has estimated annual growth of 2.6% of the Nigerian population, while the unemployment rate was recorded to be at 23.1% in Q4, 2018. Trading economics predicted that there will be a 4% YOY in unemployment in Nigeria. The math is simple; if all variables remain constant, the 4% YOY increase in 6 years would have resulted in an unemployment rate of 29.02%. This scenario would lead to an increase in crime rate, political instability, exploitation of labor, increase in poverty, and social problems.
However, one of the quickest solution to this futuristic problem of unemployment is to integrate SME skills program as a curriculum in our early years of schooling, build more technical schools to reduce dependency rate, improve on existing infrastructure (good road, rail network & power generation), encourage more public-private partnership policies, introduce policies that guides SMEs to excel.
The Nigerian Government through her many agencies like the NIPC, SMEDAN, and FIRS can enhance their engagements with the MSMEs, and also create central policies where SMEs are allowed to showcase their products/services and sell to the global market while ensuring adherence to the international standard.
It is quite important to note that the financial sector also plays a significant role in the sustainability of SMEs as they are a major player in providing loans to SMEs. Just as reported by Techpoint, Oyapay, a Fintech start-up company, shut down due to a case of a family investment gone wrong. This approach shows that Start-ups often depending on family members as a source for funding, isn’t a sustainable model.
Technological Innovation
In spite of globalization, an important section of developing countries’ SMEs operationalizes business the conventional way. This results in a low level of productivity, low-quality of products, and exploring to a small and local market. It is noted that generally, SMEs tend to have low productivity and as a result, are weak when competing.
This is the result of using conventional technology and not having the maximum utility of machinery. Due to the limitation of funding and innovation, it may not be possible for them to improve their processes. However, policies can be implemented to guide SMEs on adopting the use of technology.
Infrastructure (Road, Rail Network & Power)
Poor infrastructure is a major frustration for SMEs trying to get on with their jobs; be its poor-quality broadband; it is stopping a small business from operating more online or rural firms finding it harder to move around because of poor roads and public transport.
Poor and deteriorating infrastructure can pose severe damage on business growth and viability, hence the lack of such amenities has led to extremely high cost of operating businesses in Nigeria. Other factors like; cost of sourcing for raw materials, transportation, internet services and finished products all add up, often leading to the provision of poor service delivery rendered to customers just for the business to keep afloat and possibly break even.
Thus, adequate and basic infrastructure can act as a catalyst for economic growth beyond the usual ease it provides. A good example is the establishment of the IPP project launched at Sura-Shopping Complex, Simpson road in Lagos Island. A project handled by Rural Electrification Authority under the Office of the Vice President of Nigeria. The initiative was very basic, focused on providing regular and reliable power supply to the over 1,000 shops and offices within Sura-Shopping Complex.
Upon the commencement of this project, it was observed that beyond the power supply, more jobs were created due to an uninterrupted power supply at the complex. The offices and business owners could almost immediately afford to employ more hands, do shifts (including night shifts) for more production. Initiatives like this would further encourage SMEs and as well as improve our ease of doing business index.
Workable Models for SMEs Funding
One viable model I have seen is the way some of the Micro Finance Institution dispense loan. The Group-lending model requires individuals to form a group of five and receive five-days financial training to obtain a loan from the lending Institution.
The emphasis from the very outset is to strengthen the SMEs organisationally and to build their capacity to plan and implement micro-level development decisions. (Grameen Group Lending Model).
The Government can thereby adopt this approach and provide loan to a group of different clusters of SMEs based on their demographics, business type, location and the raw materials required to run those businesses. Other lending models can also then be adopted here.
Many would say such initiatives will not be successful in Nigeria going by the previous experience of bad debts, unaccountability, lack of adequate records, and poor or lack of identity management systems. My assumption is the same, however, one begs to wonder if the community lending Initiative could make a difference which allows one to be responsible for another?
For instance; one can only qualify for loans if my fellow community members are fruitful in the commitment to repayment. Then there is bound to be an exponential growth in the SME sector when each member depends on another to grow. Currently, for some of the micro-finance companies – these clusters can only qualify for a bigger loan after repayment.
In my days in the FMCG sector, working at the production line, a bonus is received when targets are met as a group and not as individuals. As the goals are met as a group, this qualifies the group to be engaged with a bigger task as they continue to grow as a unit. Is this method applicable to the SMEs?
The TraderMoni initiative, for example, is focused on providing loans for petty traders that are unbanked but require access to funds to run their small businesses. Corporate Finance Houses might not be able to capture these set of the population due to their locations, lack of interest to own a bank account or the knowledge gap on why being financially included is vital to them.
TraderMoni can advance to the next stage on requirements where traders would only qualify for their next loan when they have successfully registered a bank account to their name through USSD service. Would such an initiative improve financial inclusion? I believe so.
Government Agencies like the SMEDAN; are responsible for initiating and articulating policy ideas for small and medium enterprises growth and development. If they further enrich their database, FDI inflows may grow based on credible and available data showing the opportunity for growth.
The Government’s form of supporting SMEs doesn’t necessarily have to be financial support all the time; as Government can even lease equipment to a group of farmers in community X as a service for five years. This support would promote the effective use of these equipment’s and drive more farmers to make the best use of the time allotted to them.
NISRAL, a CBN initiative founded in 2013 currently executes the equipment-as-a-service model for farmers in rural areas. The major advantage with this initiative is that every member of such a group depends on each other to ensure the funds being received are used for its real purpose while profit generated is channeled back into the business.
SMEs in Nigeria
In Nigeria, the importance of SMEs in the process of social and economic development cannot be neglected, and its significance in the development of the country.
It was summarized in Nigeria’s third National Development Plan, 1975-1980; as the generation of employment opportunities, stimulation of indigenous entrepreneurship, facilitation of effective mobilization of local resources including capital and skill as well as a reduction in regional disparities.
Despite the slow growth of SMEs development, Impact of SMEs has been a known fact dated back as 1975!
The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) statistics revealed that 99.7 percent of U.S. businesses are SMEs. However, there are several barriers that the US SME sector still faces, especially in commodities.
The significant barriers to trading include insufficient access to finance, high transportation costs, tax laws, and rules, maintaining profitability, developing new products, language, and cultural differences. Gaps like these signify no SME ecosystem is perfect, and they are required to keep evolving with time as new challenges arise. Despite the challenges in the SMEs market in the US, the sectors still contribute 47% of total employment.
While in developing economies like India, the contribution of the SME sector to manufacturing output, employment, and exports of the country is quite significant. It is noted that regarding the value, the SME sector of India accounts for 45% of the manufacturing output and 40% of the total exports. India’s SME sector employs around 42 million people in over 13 million units throughout the country. (Source: Department of Commerce, Govt. of India)
Conclusion
It is evident from my article that SMEs contribution is considerably high in economic development whether it is a developed country or developing country. Not only financially subsidized promotion is essential, but the strategic implementation becomes vital for sustainable development of the SME sector. Strategic implementation takes care of financial aspects, human resource, marketing, research and development, technology, and corporate governance in the SME sector.
SMEs in developed Nations are not only relying on Credit availability but Technological Innovation and Infrastructural Policies. Hence, it is critical for Policymakers to create an enabling and sustainable environment as a bedrock for SMEs to flourish. Great to recall the words of Richard Branson; “A business starts small”.
Adewale A. Adeyipo, Ag. Group managing director, CWG plc,
The 2025 Kaspersky Security Bulletin provides a review of the major cybersecurity trends of the year and offers a look towards the future of cybersecurity, including within the financial sector.
According to the report, in 2025, the financial sector navigated a rapidly evolving cyber landscape, with malware spreading through messaging apps, AI-assisted attacks, supply chain compromises, and NFC-based fraud.
Based on Kaspersky Security Network statistics for the year (from November 2024 to October 2025), 8.15% of users in the finance sector globally faced online threats and 15.81% faced local (on-device) threats. 1,338,357 banking trojan attacks were detected by the company’s solutions. 12.8% of B2B finance sector companies faced ransomware this year – that marks a 35.7% increase in unique users in 2025 compared to the same period of 2024.
The company’s experts highlight the following cybersecurity trends and cases shaping the financial sector in 2025:
Large-scale supply chain attacks: the financial sector faced a series of unprecedented supply chain attacks, which are incidents that exploit vulnerabilities in third-party providers to reach their primary targets. The breaches demonstrated how vulnerabilities in third-party providers can cascade through national payment networks, affecting even central systems.
Organised crime converging with cybercrime: organised crime is increasingly combining physical and digital methods, creating more sophisticated and coordinated attacks. Financial institutions faced threats that blend social engineering, insider manipulation, and technical exploitation.
Old malware, new channels: cybercriminals increasingly exploit popular messaging apps to spread malware, shifting from email phishing to social channels. Banking trojans are being rewritten to use messaging platforms as a new distribution vector, enabling large-scale infections.
AI scales malware to new heights: this year, AI-enabled malware has increasingly incorporated automated propagation and evasion techniques, allowing attacks to spread faster and reach a larger number of targets. This automation also shortens the time between malware creation and deployment.
Mobile banking attacks and NFC fraud: Android malware using ATS (Automated Transfer System) techniques automate fraudulent transactions, altering transfer amounts and recipients in real time without the user noticing. NFC-based attacks have also emerged as a key trend, enabling both physical fraud in crowded places and remote fraud via social engineering and fake apps mimicking trusted banks.
Blockchain-Based C2 Infrastructure is on the rise: crimeware attackers increasingly embed malware commands in blockchain smart contracts, targeting Web3 to steal cryptocurrencies.
This method ensures persistence and makes the infrastructure extremely difficult to remove. Using blockchain for C2 operations allows attackers to maintain control even if conventional servers are shut down, highlighting a new level of resilience in cyberattacks.
Ransomware presence: these types of attacks remained a persistent threat for the financial sector with 12.8% of B2B finance organisations globally affected in November 2024 through October 2025. The figure for Africa is similar, with 12.9% of B2B finance organisations affected by ransomware from November 2024 through October 2025.
Disappearance of certain malware families: some malware families are likely to disappear, as their activity depends directly on the operations of specific criminal groups.
“In 2025, financial cyber threats evolved into a complex landscape, with attacks hitting businesses and end users alike. Criminal groups increasingly combined digital tools, insider access, AI and blockchain to scale operations, forcing organisations to secure not only their systems but also the human networks that support them,” said Fabio Assolini, Head of the Americas & Europe units at Kaspersky GReAT.
Kaspersky’s predictions for what finance cybersecurity might face in 2026, include:
Banking Trojans will be rewritten for WhatsApp distribution: criminal groups will increasingly rewrite and scale banking trojans distribution and abuse messaging apps like WhatsApp to target corporate and government organisations that still rely on desktop-based online banking. These environments are where Windows-based banking trojans thrive.
Growth of deepfake/AI services for social engineering: the trade in realistic deepfakes and AI-powered campaigns is expected to expand even more, fueling scams around job interviews and offers, driving underground demand for tools that fully bypass Know Your Customer (KYC) verification.
Appearance of regional info stealers: as Lumma, Redline and other stealers are still active, we expect to see the appearance of regional info stealers, targeting specific countries or regions, expanding the use of malware-as-a-service model.
More attacks on NFC payments: as a key technology used in payments, we’ll see more tools, more malware and attacks directed against NFC payments, in all types.
The advent of Agentic AI malware: agentic AI malware is characterised by its ability to dynamically alter behaviour mid-execution. Unlike conventional malware that relies on pre-defined instructions, agentic variants are designed to assess their environment, analyse their impact, and adapt their tactics on the fly.
This means that a single piece of malware could exhibit a range of behaviours, from initial infiltration to data exfiltration or system disruption, all in response to the specific defences and vulnerabilities it encounters.
Classic fraud will obtain new delivery: fraud will remain a major threat to end users, but its delivery methods will keep evolving. As new services and messaging platforms emerge, attackers will continue to adapt their tactics to the channels where their target audience is most active.
The persistence of ‘out of box’, pre-infected devices: the threat of counterfeit smart devices sold already infected with trojans (such as Triada) will continue to evolve.
These trojans often come with extensive capabilities, including the ability to steal banking credentials, and affect not only “gray” Android smartphones but also other smart devices such as TVs.
Kaspersky’s latest research reveals that the majority of compromised passwords not only violate password-safety guidelines but also remain unchanged for extended periods, which drastically reduces their security.
To provide users with access to more sophisticated and modern ways to log in, Kaspersky’s Password Manager has been enhanced with Passkey technology, enabling users to securely access their accounts while enjoying seamless cross-device synchronisation.
Although passwords still remain one of the major authentication methods, they no longer top the security charts. Often crafted by users themselves, passwords are heavily influenced by human factors, which makes them potentially vulnerable. Kaspersky experts analysed major password leaks from 2023 to 2025 and identified several recurring patterns:
- Users frequently append predictable elements like numbers, dates, and personal identifiers to their passwords. For example, 10% of passwords in datasets analysed contain a number resembling a date (from 1990 to 2025), 0.5% of all leaked passwords end with the number 2024, which is every 200th password!
- The most commonly occurring password combination is ‘12345’, which drastically reduces cryptographic strength and shortens the time required for brute-force attacks to succeed. Among other popular password components are the word ‘love’ and users’ names, as well as countries’ names which are also often included in passwords.
- Moreover, the majority of leaked passwords remain unchanged for years. In 2025, 54% of leaked passwords had already been part of prior data breaches, underscoring widespread reuse of outdated passwords. According to data analysis the average lifetime of the password found in these leaks is 3.5-4 years.
What makes Passkeys more secure?
All these findings highlight the critical vulnerability of password-based authentication when protocols for creation, management, and storage are not rigorously followed. In response to the growing need for robust security, the industry is increasingly shifting its focus toward next-generation solutions like Passkeys, which offer stronger protection against evolving threats.
Passkey technology is based on cryptographic keys and biometrics and is not subjected to threats like phishing or data leaks. A passkey is created for a particular account on a particular platform and is stored directly on the user’s device or in a password manager.
New Passkey feature in Kaspersky Password Manager
When a user registers on a platform that supports Passkey, the device creates a private key and shares a public key with the service. The private key is stored directly on the device, which is good from a security point of view, but complicates authorisation from other devices.
Now Passkeys can be created and stored directly in Kaspersky Password Manager, which allows users to not only sign in to supported services with a single tap, but also access Passkeys on all their devices owing to secure synchronisation.
“From our own experience, we’ve seen how constantly juggling logins and passwords for work, study and even leisure can erode both time and security. Kaspersky Password Manager has long streamlined this process with tools like our secure password generator and auto-fill functionality – ensuring users never sacrifice safety for speed.
In addition to that, we are happy to offer to our customers a new Passkey feature – an enhanced level of accounts protection which makes authentication even simpler and, most importantly, more secure,” comments Marina Titova, Vice President for Consumer Business at Kaspersky.
Passkey functionality is now available on all platforms in the latest version of Kaspersky Password Manager. To create a passkey in Kaspersky Password Manager, first update the app to the latest version and grant it all necessary permissions. Then, open the website where you want to create the passkey and simply follow the in-app guidance to register and save it.
Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has once again, reaffirmed its leadership as one of the continent’s most innovative and resilient financial institutions, as the bank has, for the third time in five years, been named the African Bank of the year 2025 by the Banker.com.
UBA
UBA also won the Best Bank of the Year awards in nine of its 20 African subsidiaries, bringing its total awards this year to ten as UBA Benin, UBA Chad, UBA Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), UBA Liberia, UBA Mali, UBA Mozambique, UBA Senegal, UBA Sierra Leone, and UBA Zambia, all came out tops as the best banks in their respective countries, underscoring the bank’s strength across West, Central and Southern Africa and highlighting the depth of its Pan-African franchise.
The Banker.com, a leading global finance news publication published by the Financial Times of London, organises the annual Bank of the Year Awards, and this year’s edition was held at a grand ceremony at the Peninsula, London, on Wednesday.
The Chief Executive Officer, UBA UK, Deji Adeyelure, received the awards on behalf of the bank, representing the Group Managing Director/CEO, Oliver Alawuba, and was accompanied by the bank’s Head Business Development, Mark Ifashe, and Head, Financial Institutions, Shilpam Jha.
The Banker’s awards are widely regarded as the most respected and rigorous in the global banking industry, celebrating institutions that demonstrate outstanding performance, innovation and strategic execution.
In its remarks on UBA’s winnings, the banker.com said, “For the third time in five years, UBA Group has won the coveted Bank of the Year award for Africa. UBA Group time after time punches above its weight against its larger African rivals. The bank this year also takes home nine separate country awards (one more than it gained for its last continental win in 2024), equivalent to around a quarter of the awards for the continent, and more than any of its continent-wide rivals.”
Continuing, it said, “Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that the awards were won across a broad geographic spread, going to lenders based in the Economic Community of West African States (Benin, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and former member Mali), the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (Chad, Republic of Congo) and the Southern African Development Community (Mozambique, Zambia). Its award wins were particularly notable in the highly competitive categories for Benin and Mozambique.”
The Banker also highlighted UBA’s strong financial performance and commitment to future growth. In 2024, the Group recorded a 46.8 per cent increase in assets and a 6.1 per cent rise in pre-tax profits in local currency terms, while continuing to invest significantly in talent and technology. West Africa remains UBA’s heartland, with operating revenue and profit increasing by 87 per cent and 89 per cent respectively in H1 2025.
The bank’s digital and innovation leadership was equally recognised. During the year under review, and launched its Advance Top-Up buy-now-pay-later feature on the *919# USSD platform, expanding financial access for customers, while the bank’s chatbot Leo continued its strong growth trajectory, with transaction volumes rising by 29 per cent year-on-year in H1 2025. Notably, in August, Leo became the first African banking chatbot to enable cross-border payments via the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS).
UBA’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Alawuba, while reacting to the achievement, said the recognition affirms the bank’s long-term strategy and customer-first philosophy.
“This honour reflects the strength of our Pan-African network, the trust of our customers, and the dedication of our people. Winning Africa’s Bank of the Year for the third time in five years is not by chance; it is a testament to disciplined execution, innovation, and a deep understanding of the markets we serve,” Alawuba said.
“Our nine country awards across diverse regions of Africa show that UBA is not just growing, but growing with impact. We remain committed to driving financial inclusion, supporting economic development, and deploying technology that makes banking simpler, faster, and more accessible to Africans everywhere,” he added.
United Bank for Africa is one of the largest employers in the financial sector on the African continent, with 25,000 employees group-wide and serving over 45 million customers globally. Operating in twenty African countries, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France and the United Arab Emirates, UBA provides retail, commercial and institutional banking services, leading financial inclusion and implementing cutting-edge technology.
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