An Internship report on SME financing of Agrani Bank Limited: A Case study on Tongi Branch, Gazipur

Abstract

It is said that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) account for 60 percent of total employments in our country. Every year about 2 million young people join in the country’s workforce. Half of them find jobs at home and abroad. So it has become a challenge to create more jobs so that the rest can be employed. SMEs can be an answer to the problem. In labour surplus country like Bangladesh, SMEs can play a substantial role in providing the impetus to the development of the modern manufacturing sector and job creation outside the agriculture and informal sectors. SMEs are labour intensive but relatively low cost capital intensive. For a developing country like Bangladesh SMEs are a cost effective way towards the reduction of unemployment.

Financial Institutes around the world are relentlessly trying to enhance the SME exposure in their groups. Over the years Agrani Bank Limited has expanded the financing exposure all over Bangladesh. SME sector is one of them. Although all over the world, the importance of SME financing is highly appreciated and entertained, this sector lacks proper boost from the government and attention of financial organizations. There are many reasons that financial organizations especially banks are unwilling in financing to the small and medium enterprises. Agrani Bank Limited is currently motivated hard to enhance the SME exposure of the bank. According to The Dhaka Tribune (2015) Agrani Bank Limited achieved 95.31% of its target in SME financing.

The internship report entitled “SME Financing of Agrani Bank Limited: A Study at Tongi Branch”. The main objective behind this report is to know about the SME financing activities of Agrani Bank Limited, Tongi Branch and also to determine how well Agrani Bank performs in this sector. The survey is conducted on 30 respondents (sample, those represent the total general customers segment) to measure customers satisfaction with SME financing. This report consists of seventh chapters. The sixth chapter contains result and discussion of the report. Where most of the respondents (73%) said that SME financing increased their standard of living and more than 60% of the respondents said that they renewed the loan after duration. Most of the respondents satisfied with branch services but they are not happy with the interest rate of SME financing. The seventh chapter deals with findings, conclusion of the report with recommendations. From my overall study it is concluded that, Agrani Bank Limited, Tongi Branch, Gazipur should possesses a more attractive and standard SME financing procedure by solving the problems which dissatisfied the customers.