Finance and Economic Opportunities
With regard to the beneficiaries of the SMME Booster Fund:
(a) What support is her department providing to upskill businesses in the adoption of online payment methods, (b) what benefits has this had for these businesses, (c) what are the number of businesses that have received this support to date and (d) what sort of online payment methods are businesses adopting?
[a] The Enterprise Development unit within the Department has since 2019 predominantly assisted Small Medium and Micro Enterprises [SMMEs] through the SMME Booster Fund [the Fund]. The Fund follows a demand-led partnership driven collaborative model to assist SMMEs. The Fund supports new and existing SMME focussed projects implemented by organisations. The SMME beneficiaries linked to the various projects undergo a business assessment. The businesses assessment determines the nature and type of interventions that would be most beneficial to the identified SMMEs. In 2021, the RLabs SMME Booster Fund collaboration had as part of its support package, a digitisation component. This component included the development of e-commerce websites and the acquisition of card payment machines [Yoco] for the SMME beneficiaries of the project.
[b] The benefits attributed to the SMME recipients of these interventions are as follows:
- Ability to participate at pop-up markets, flea markets and trading events (or similar); and
- Improvement in safety as it minimises the handling of cash.
[c] Of the 105 businesses supported by the RLabs SMME Booster Fund collaboration, a total of 16 were assisted with digital payment interventions.
[d]
- E-commerce
- Card machines
- Snap scan
