Sasfin gears up for larger slice of business banking
Former textile trading business knows fabric of entrepreneurship
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are not retail clients. Nor are they big corporations. But when banks approach SMEs they usually treat them as one of those. "That's why many SMEs struggle with their banking," said Sasfin CEO Michael Sassoon. Having worked with businesses for more than five decades and with a firm footing in financing trade, capital equipment, working capital and debtors, Sasfin is confident it knows what entrepreneurs want. And that is the niche it aims to make its own while the big banks still use queues at branches as the first port of call for many growing businesses. "We have a digital banking site that was developed with the SME in mind," said Sassoon, who took over from his father Roland at the start of last year. Established in 1951 as a textile trading operation, Sassoon Textiles was converted into a finance business in the 1960s. The family traces its roots back many centuries to a thriving merchant business in Baghdad in present-day Iraq. More recently...
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