Business Partners

Our business partners

Selecting our business partners

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Ethical procuring practices are embedded in our procurement process. We undertake due diligence on them before and after we sign a contract including checks about financial health, anti-corruption and compliance checks. We also measure factors such as suppliers’ environmental

impact and labour standards. We give priority to local suppliers who meet the required standards. All suppliers are selected by our Purchasing Committee and are validated according to transaction authorisation limits.

We use the following criteria to select supplier and business partner:

• Compliance with applicable laws and regulations
• Compliance with relevant certifications and standards
• Adherence to environmental and social specifications
• Quality standards
• Cost competitiveness
• Reliability
• On-time delivery
• Past performance
• Customer reviews

In the event of any supplier or business partner failing to meet their responsibilities of respecting human rights and honouring the sustainability requirements, we would consider termination of the relationship.

A sustainable supply chain

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Our business partners are a vital aspect of our supply chain facilitating value creation through the execution of our strategy. We build trusting relationships through regular engagement and by creating mutual benefits. Selecting the wrong business partner or over dependence on certain suppliers could have a detrimental impact on our strategic, market and competitive position. Furthermore, failure to effectively manage suppliers could result in business disruption, regulatory fines and brand damage as well. Therefore, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure the resilience and sustainability of our supply chain. Despite the current economic context of the country, during the year under review 2021/22 we as a company did not encounter any major concerns in our supply chains as a result of the strong relationship we had with our suppliers. We supported our business partners and delivered a high business partner experience by activating timely payments, remaining strong committed to all our partner agreements and providing feedback to identify areas of improvement to enhance their services and products. We supported our business partners and delivered a high business partner experience by activating timely payments, remaining strongly committed to all our partner agreements and providing feedback to identify areas of improvement to enhance their services and products.

Collaborating to advance responsible and sustainable financing

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Collaboration is a key in achieving our long term strategy of becoming a techfin company. Our agility to collaborate with many business partners will be a definite competitive advantage in our journey towards Q-TAB. We adopt standard best practices to ensure our ability to connect with various business partners.

Whilst managing the environmental and social risks when promoting new business opportunities, we extend responsible and inclusive financial services to facilitate positive social and environmental development. We collaborate to advance environmental protection, social justice, and economic prosperity and we stand ahead of the curve with a considerable net lending position to the rural economy. We have nurtured long-term relationships with the following sustainability partners to make a positive contribution to the society and environment.

Funding partners supporting growth and expansion

We work in collaboration with funding partners who provide the required finances to expand our business, grow our balance sheet and elevate the aspirations of our stakeholders. Over the years, we have maintained long-standing relationships with both local and international funding partners by maintaining their trust through the delivery of obligations on respective due dates on time.

Local funding partners

Our local funding partners include banks and intermediary fund arrangers that support our balance sheet growth by extending funds as per our funding requirements. Over 60% of our total funding comes from local banks, and they remain an important value-adding partner.

Funding secured through our banking relationships with local funding partners.

Foreign funding partners

We have continued to build trust and confidence of our foreign funding partners in our institution through stringent compliance, commitment to transparency, discharging of debt obligations in a timely manner and following ethical business practices. We have channeled the funds according to the respective mandates, contributing towards green financing that combats climate change, empowering women, rural and SME development, and expansion of agriculture. Although we did not obtain any new funding lines during the year under review, we continued to strengthen our relationships with our foreign funding partners.

Funding received from foreign funding partners

Uninterrupted service through our technological partners

Technology performance has become critical to our business success. Our technological partners play a vital role in our strategic priority of transformation from a conventional base financial solutions provider to a digital/technology base services provider.

Technological partnerships enable us to scale up our customer base by enabling us to increase our delivery channels without increasing the physical presence.

Our partners enables efficiency improvement and enrich the customer experience. They provide us the flexibility to connect with our customers to amplify value, successfully innovate new products and services, and build scale to our operations. Our technological partners have enhanced different aspects of our Company including risk and regulatory technology, digital transformation, analytics and areas such as IT Governance, IT Cost & Value Management, IT Sourcing, Cloud, IT Operations & Service Management. We have continued to work closely with a wide range of partners for our tech support and strengthened the onboarding process of business partners. A stringent selection process is in place to select the best partners who would complement the execution of our strategy. This includes evaluation by a Board steering committee. Criteria such as endorsements, testimonials, service standards, after-sales support and relationship with our trusted partners are taken into consideration to achieve the service level standards (SLA).

During the year, we kept the expected SLA across all services. This includes transparent decisions, the continuation of the annual maintenance contract (AMC), carrying out the required system upgrades, establishing relevant date security standards and patch upgrades, and accommodating requests for technology changes to meet changing customer requirements. Our strong and long-standing relationships with our technological partners enabled us to provide an uninterrupted service and meet the increase demand for digital services.

Our key technology partners

Our strategic partnerships

Motor vehicle leasing is a key segment of our business, which constitute a major portion of our lending business portfolio. The vehicle leasing market was impacted due to vehicle import restrictions imposed by the Central Bank over the past years. Nevertheless, we continued to nurture long-standing, cordial relationships with several vehicle suppliers across the country, who remain an important strategic partner of our Company.

Support services ensuring smooth operations

Several international and local business partners are vital for the smooth operations of our business. Services such as security, janitorial, logistics, document archiving, courier, waste management, maintenance of office equipment and machine servicing have been outsourced to specialist companies. Most of these service providers are local and we engage with them regularly, recognising their efforts and services. We have secured cordial relationships and maintained uninterrupted services through prompt payment for services such as electricity, water, telephone and internet services. Rs. 99.9 Mn. was paid to utility service providers during the year 2021/22.

Memberships and associations

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We have maintained membership in several industry organisations, professional institutes, associations and societies. Our active engagement in these forums helps us to enhance industry standards, facilitate networking, provide opportunities for employees to benefit from activities offered by these organisations, and contribute our best to resolve any industry issues. This is an ideal opportunity to build stronger relationships by engaging with our stakeholders.

Supporting our business partners

We have continued to support our business partners by activating timely payments, remaining strongly committed to all our partner agreements, and working diligently with our suppliers and external parties to continue our business operations. Arrangements were made to ensure all general payments were made without a delay for all the services received.

Future priorities 2022/23

We will continue to maintain strong relationships with our business partners securing mutual benefits to increase the value delivered to our stakeholders. We aim to launch a new digital banking product on multiple platforms including internet banking, mobile banking and wallet banking, that would create a merchant ecosystem. All CEFT payments will be launched on the new digital banking platform. Furthermore, we aim to become a member of the National Credit Guarantee Institution once it is operationalised.