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Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) are vital to economic growth, job creation, provision of goods and services, and poverty alleviation in emerging markets. MSMEs make up over 90% of all firms and account, on average, for 70% of total employment and 50% of GDP worldwide. The MSME finance gap now stands at $5.7 trillion – a number that swells to $8 trillion when informal enterprises are included. In emerging markets, 70% of MSMEs lack adequate financing while 1.7 billion adults lack access to basic transaction accounts. Those without access are largely concentrated in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and are disproportionately poor and female.

MSME financing is a significant part of IFC’s business. This factsheet captures how IFC works across emerging markets to improve financial infrastructure and scale new tools to deliver impactful financial products and services for MSMEs.

This factsheet is published by IFC.