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Dubai: Women-owned small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE can apply for themselves a $50,000 grant and mentorship opportunities as part of the FAB initiative by Visa and Abu Dhabi Bank. The application deadline for the “She’s Next” program is June 23.
Data shows that around half of female entrepreneurs surveyed in the UAE found access to finance to be a major barrier, with eight in 10 having to use personal savings to fund operations.
In the “She’s Next” program, one winner will receive US$50,000, a customized training program, and access to the “Entrepreneur Community” under the Visa promotion program.
How to make the cut
She’s Next is part of Visa’s efforts to support the “digitalization of women’s businesses” and launched the “Female SME Digitalization Index”. It scores businesses based on 5 indicators – online presence, digital payment acceptance, payment security awareness, customer engagement and customer retention.
In the UAE, the index found that women-owned businesses scored highest in digital marketing, online presence and customer engagement.
Other key findings from the index include:
- Accepting digital payments is the biggest challenge (76% of respondents), followed by lack of family support (75%) and balancing work and family (73%).
- Nearly half of those surveyed still face difficulties raising funds. 60% of respondents stated that it is difficult to obtain digitalization funding due to the high costs required to implement digitalization. Investors also lack understanding of the associated benefits.
- If available, additional funds will be invested in new technologies (43%), advertising and marketing (42%), and creating new products and services (41%).
- There’s also the issue of stereotypes, which 53% of female entrepreneurs said means being seen as “less capable of making tough decisions and leading teams (40%), and being more emotional and unable to differentiate between personal and business matters (38%)’.
- 56% said online is their main sales channel.
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