South Africa’s SMEs need delivery, says Access Bank CEO

Access Bank South Africa is urging a shift in how the country supports its small businesses in 2026, starting with on-time payments, smoother trade processes, and skills programmes that result in a first pay-day.

“SMEs are the lifeblood of any economy. The question for all of us is whether we have given them enough practical attention in how money moves, how contracts are honoured and how trade actually works on the ground,” says Sandile Shabalala, Chief Executive Officer of Access Bank South Africa.

Shabalala recently used his keynote address at the JSE Corporate Affairs Symposium to argue that South Africa’s growth depends less on slogans and more on “a handful of executable outcomes where each party changes something real”.

“For me, two of those outcomes are simple. Pay small suppliers on time and turn training into income within ninety days. Late payment kills viable firms. On-time payment costs almost nothing to fix and it saves jobs quickly.”

On-time payment as a competitiveness issue

Access Bank is using its own operations and client conversations to push on-time payment to the top of large buyers’ agendas.

“SME owners tell us that access to finance matters, but reliable cash flow from customers often matters more. If a verified small supplier must wait months for payment, the entire value chain is exposed to unnecessary risk. We want to make thirty-day payment for small suppliers the norm, not the exception,” he says.

Internally the bank uses an outcomes scorecard that tracks one time payments to small suppliers, the share of local procurement, youth training that converts into first income, and support pathways for women led firms.

“These are not public relations slogans. They are working measures that our teams review regularly. You cannot claim to back SMEs if your own payment behaviour tells a different story.”

Removing friction in finance and trade

Shabalala believes that many barriers facing SMEs are not policy gaps but execution gaps.

“Policy is often in place. What fails is execution. For a business in Gauteng to sell to a buyer in Lubumbashi and feel confident it will be paid, documentation, timelines and settlement must work. Our partnerships focus on removing these small frictions so that goods turn into income.”

Access Bank has built a dedicated unit to partner with fintech companies, seeing them not as a threat but as collaborators in inclusion.

“We chose to be a bank for fintechs. We create space to test, co-create and move promising ideas from pilot to production so that excluded customers, including small businesses, can be reached faster.”

To keep efforts focused, the bank uses a “trade-flow checklist” to track where transactions stall and who is responsible for fixing them, from KYC documentation through to cross-border settlement.

Turning skills into a first pay-day

Alongside payment discipline and trade enablement, Shabalala wants more attention on whether training leads to income.

“Our system produces many certificates, but too few paydays. If funders tied part of their training spend to the first revenue a young person earns, providers and employers would design pathways that lead to faster conversions. That is where access to finance, skills and opportunity start to reinforce each other for SMEs.”

Access Bank is using this lens in its own programmes, including women-focused initiatives such as Womenpreneur Pitch & Match, as well as youth entrepreneurship support, with an emphasis on whether participants are trading, hiring or supplying within months of completion.

A call to SMEs and large buyers

“Every success story begins with someone believing. But there must be a conscious decision to back people with action. For SMEs that means being clear about the work you can do and the terms you can manage. For large buyers it means paying on time, being transparent about your processes and treating small suppliers as partners.”

He sees the bank’s role as practical, “We will keep building products and partnerships that remove friction for SMEs, keep pushing for on-time payments and trusted trade flows, and keep measuring what actually changes for entrepreneurs,” he concludes.