TO bolster the country’s micro, small and medium enterprises’ (MSME) digitalization and e-commerce’s growth, Digital Pilipinas, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Department of Trade and Industry-Philippine Trade Training Center (DTI-PTTC) signed on Tuesday a pact for the local launch of the Global SME Financial Education Program, paving the way for the country to be a part of a pilot on digitalization of small scale businesses that’s also happening in India, Ghana, and Singapore.
Digital technology is at the center of the e-commerce industry to run a successful business while allowing MSMEs to reap the benefits of the digital world. With digitization, these small-scale enterprises and the online marketplace have the chance to employ their astounding capabilities to allow sellers to link with their customers via the web and mobile platforms.
MSMEs play a significant role in most of the economies around the world. Because of their power to create jobs, they contribute to many countries for around 150 percent growth of their national income.
To make them vibrant and enable them to grow further, access to finance is key, according to MAS Chief Fintech Officer Sopnendu Mohanty. But many of times, however, this has been cited as a key constraint, he noted.
In most of the emerging markets, he said MSMEs continue to be underserved, struggling to get loans from the banks and other financial institutions. Because of this, they mostly rely on in-the-mill cash flows and borrow from friends and families.
“That’s kind of limit their growth and they stay small and medium for rest of their lives,” he emphasized. “So what we really want to do, as part of this journey, is to find the path for SMEs so that we focus on helping them to take their ideas, be it small or medium scale at this point of time, and find their part for them to become a bigger enterprise [and] a scalable enterprise in the future,” Mohanty said.
The way to do this is to find good technology, where such constraint can be removed. That is why the MAS is looking at how it can make business solutions and financing options available not only to a lot of corporates but also to MSMEs.
Also, it is now working with the Philippine government and the private sector to offer an international SME program which allows small businesses to go through the certification process on the foundational knowledge and a global financial certificate with a much more advanced understanding of how to access financial services and use this technology.
For its part, the DTI-PTTC is currently working with the Singapore government for the development of career pathways, job roles, functional and enabling skills, and competencies and corresponding proficiency level to prepare curriculum and modules guided by a skills framework.
“We’re very happy to report that we were able to complete, I think, more than 500 skills documents covering different positions for career pathway, skills documents which are actually defining also the job roles, the critical functions and the key tasks corresponding to the jobs identified in the career path and, of course, the skills competencies and enabling skills and competencies,” DTI-PTTC Executive Director Nelly Dillera said, while citing the sectoral skills framework that they have already prepared for the Philippines which include logistics and supply chain, digital animation, game development, as well as cross-sectoral skills framework applicable to different sectors, such as business development, marketing, sales and finance, and human capital development which will be launched in May.
Looking forward, Digital Pilipinas hopes to share their collaborative initiative in two global platforms that the MAS are setting up. One is the Global Launch of the SME Financial Education Program in Ghana happening in June, where the Philippines is proudly one of the four countries supporting such undertaking initiative, and the realization of the European Chamber of Commerce and the Government of Hungary in charge of its digitalization program on how old Asean roads can lead to Europe, and vice versa.
“There has never been a better time to be an Asian and to be in technology. Let’s build a Digital Pilipinas in a digitally connected world one SME at a time,” said Amor Maclang, convenor of Digital Pilipinas and World Fintech Festival, executive director and trustee of Fintech Philippines Association, and cofounder of GeiserMaclang.
