“Banks do not have the capacity to finance start-ups”. This is the information delivered by Issa Fadiga, Managing Director of the Banque Populaire de Côte d'Ivoire, this Tuesday, February 23, 2021 in Abidjan, on the occasion of the 32nd Professional Meetings of the Company. For this financier, the banks rely on the financial statements, on the history of the last two or three years. All things that a newly created company cannot provide. On the issue of support for SMEs, the four public banks operating on the Ivorian market represent 19% of the national banking network and record a credit portfolio balance sheet of 8%. “People think that public banks exist to finance the public sector. But in reality, they mainly finance the private sector at nearly 70 to 75% in the secondary and tertiary sector against 25% on average for the public sector”, he specifies. The interest rate charged by financial establishments in the WAEMU space sometimes presents itself as an obstacle to SMEs' access to suitable financing. To this question, the Managing Director of the Banque Populaire de Côte d'Ivoire replies that there is a correlation between the interest rate and the level of risk. The higher the level of risk, the higher the interest rate, he argues. “The cost of resources can also explain the problem of the interest rate. If a bank is going to lend 5 to 6 billion to an insurance company, the latter can demand that this loan be remunerated by 5 to 6%. You understand that the bank cannot lend these same funds at 5%, even if the SME presents a zero level of risk”, maintains Issa Fadiga. As a solution to the problems of the interest rate in particular and that of the financing of SMEs in general, the evolution of the entire financing ecosystem was recommended by the Director General of the Banque Populaire de Côte d'Ivoire. To do this, he recommends increasing the banking rate, currently estimated at 22%, to improve the ability of banks to be able to lend, through much larger and cheaper resources. SMEs have been called upon to formalize and have reliable financial statements to reduce their level of risk. As for the State, it was invited to set up a single security register which will centralize all national companies and to operationalize the guarantee fund which would make it possible to mitigate the risk taken by banks on SMEs. . LAWANI Babatunde