FirstBank Nigeria has announced the next edition of its SMEConnect Webinar, scheduled for Wednesday, 25 June 2026, focused on the theme “Funding your growth: how SMEs can access finance and scale faster.” The quarterly virtual event, which is open to all business owners across Nigeria, brings together senior figures from the banking and development finance sectors to provide entrepreneurs with practical, actionable guidance on securing credit and building the commercial foundations for sustainable growth.
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Who will be speaking and why it matters
The keynote address will be delivered by Kemi Adeosun, former Minister of Finance and convener of the DashMe Foundation and NIDACITY — bringing a rare combination of policy-level insight and entrepreneurship development experience to a conversation that is primarily aimed at working business owners.
The panel discussion will feature Oluwatoyin Edu, Executive Director of MSME at the Bank of Industry, whose institution has disbursed billions of naira to small businesses across Nigeria; Afoluwake Dahunsi, Head of Credit Analysis and Processing at FirstBank; and Helen Willie, Head of SME Banking at FirstBank. The combination of development finance, credit assessment, and commercial banking perspectives in a single session is designed to give entrepreneurs a complete view of the funding landscape rather than a one-sided pitch from any single institution.
Group Executive for e-Business and Retail Products at FirstBank, Chuma Ezirim, described the session’s purpose plainly: access to capital remains the biggest growth constraint for Nigerian SMEs. This edition will demystify funding, show entrepreneurs practical steps to become bankable, and connect them to the right tools and partners to scale faster.
“Becoming bankable” is a phrase that gets used often without much explanation of what it actually requires. A session that walks entrepreneurs through the specific documentation, governance structures, and financial records that credit assessors look for addresses the gap that stops many business owners from even starting a loan application.
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The SMEConnect track record
FirstBank’s SMEConnect platform has become one of the more consistent bank-led SME capacity building initiatives in Nigeria, running quarterly webinars across topics ranging from tax compliance and digital tools to AI adoption and alternative financing. The bank has been recognised as Best SME Bank in Nigeria and Best SME Bank in Africa by TAB Global Excellence in Retail Finance Awards for two consecutive years, and won the SME Financier of the Year award from The Digital Banker — credentials that add weight to the practical value of the knowledge being shared.
Over N1 trillion has been disbursed to support customer financial needs through FirstBank’s SME-focused products, including AI-enabled credit scoring tools designed to give micro SMEs faster access to finance without the traditional documentation burdens that most small businesses struggle to meet.
In a country where 51 per cent of small businesses have opted out of formal borrowing entirely, a webinar that shows entrepreneurs exactly how to make themselves credit-ready is not a soft initiative — it is one of the more practical interventions a bank can make.
The webinar is free to attend. Business owners can register via FirstBank’s SMEConnect platform at smeconnect.firstbanknigeria.com.
