PharmAccess mobilizes public and private resources for the benefit of doctors and patients through clinical standards and quality improvements, loans for healthcare providers, health insurance, mHealth innovations and operational research.
Medical Credit Fund reached a disbursement milestone of $100 million in capital. As the only fund fully dedicated to the African health sector, its support has been critical for the continuation and improvement of care in many sub-Saharan regions, especially in the past crisis year.
The Corona pandemic has put private facilities under increased pressure. For many, 2020 has been a year of fluctuating patient visits and increased expenditure on protective equipment. Arjan Poels, managing director of MCF said: ‘’We wanted to avoid at all costs that facilities had to close their doors because of COVID-19. The private health sector provides about 50% of Africa’s healthcare. Ceasing health businesses would result in many more people being unable to access care, especially in rural or hard to reach areas as well as unofficial urban settlements’’.
MCF continues providing loans to health medium-sized enterprises (SME’s), when many other financial institutions scaled down as a response to the crisis. Over the course of 10 years, MCF helped over thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) with access to capital and technical support to strengthen their health services. MCF fills a gap where local African banks and institutions are unable or unwilling to serve SME’s. The SME sector is poorly served as entrepreneurs of smaller businesses are rarely able to meet the bank’s credit criteria.
Compared to local banks, MCF offers entrepreneurs more flexible repayment rates and fast loan disbursement. Its fully digital ‘Cash Advance’ product continued growing over 100% in 2020. This working capital loan provides easy onboarding of new clients via their mobile phone and does not require collateral, making it also popular among women entrepreneurs.
MCF recently secured EUR 7.5 million from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to finance healthcare providers in sub-Saharan Africa and is about to is about to launch its second fund.
