Influence of Commercial Bank Credit Facilities on Performance of Women’s Projects in Bungoma County Kenya

Abstract

The banking industry plays a vital role in todays‘ society in promoting economic development by giving support to businesses through credit facilities creation and encouraging a culture of savings amongst individuals, businesses and development groups. The local banking system comprised of 46 commercial banks, 15 microfinance institutions and 1109 forex bureaus at the end of December 2008.The industry has over the past few years enjoyed exponential growth in deposits, assets profitability and products offering, mainly attributed to automation of services and branch network expansion both locally and regionally. The growth has brought about increasing competition among players and new entrants into the banking sector. The competition has led to banks focusing on diverse customer needs rather than traditional banking products such as over the counter deposits and withdrawal. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of bank credit facilities on the performance of women‘s projects in Bungoma County. The researcher used self-administered drop and pick questionnaires to collect data as well as document reviews were used. The target population was women business entrepreneurs in Bungoma County, specifically in the central business unit. A total of 170 entrepreneurs were selected through stratified simple random sampling. The results were analyzed through both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The output of this study was vital in providing information to women entrepreneurs about banking to improve performance, as well as to banks to help them encourage women to access the credit facilities.