A financial sector advisory firm with the instincts of an operator
Financial Access Capital Partners (“FA Capital”) provides financial sector and financial institution advisory services: financial sector reform and planning, the workout of troubled institutions and systems, corporate finance and capital markets work, and operational technical assistance and management support.
Our clients are financial institutions, private investors, development finance institutions, NGOs, funds and governments active in financial sector investment and development — primarily in the frontier and emerging markets of Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
We maintain a 100% focus on the financial sector and SME finance. Banking operations, financial systems, distressed assets, SME investment and finance, and agricultural, healthcare, housing and energy financing are particular specialisations.
What sets us apart: hands-on experience with central banking and bank supervision, bank operations, line management, risk management, asset management and insurance — and a record of implementing and delivering results in and via financial institutions, not merely recommending them.
All of our directors and advisers are seasoned practitioners from international financial institutions, with track records in international banking, capital markets, investment management and insurance in emerging markets.
Deep experience where it is hardest won
FA Capital’s geographic footprint spans Africa, South-East Europe and Central Asia, South and South-East Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America and the Caribbean — markets where SEAF, our institutional shareholder and group partner, often has presence and historic strength.
From ING’s emerging markets practice to an independent firm within the SEAF group
Financial Access is the result of a management buy-out of the long-established financial sector advisory business of the Netherlands-based ING Bank — a friendly transaction completed in 2007 with SEAF as institutional co-founding shareholder. Independent ever since, the firm has built on its ING-era track record and experience, which today extends to more than 250 assignments in over 40 countries.
ING develops a financial services advisory and consulting practice in the emerging markets, active across Central and South-East Europe, Asia and beyond — including early collaboration with SEAF’s South Balkan Fund on the proposed privatisation of the Macedonian Postbank.
ING decides, for strategic reasons, to divest the advisory practice as it refocuses on EU markets. SEAF expresses interest in supporting a management buy-out.
Financial Access Capital Partners is founded through the MBO from ING, with SEAF as founding institutional partner alongside management. SEAF acquires its first physical presence in continental Europe at FACP’s Amsterdam office.
SEAF and FACP jointly develop the Financial Institutions Opportunities Fund concept, targeting SME-focused banks and NBFIs in emerging markets globally, with initial capital raised before the global financial crisis intervenes.
FA and SEAF co-operate on advisory projects across markets; SEAF co-locates its EU representative office at FACP’s premises in Amsterdam.
The Financial Access group evolves into focused business lines. Its agri-finance consulting unit is divested to its management; FACTS East Africa — a platform-driven SME supply-chain finance company founded by FA in Kenya and Uganda — receives investment from SEAF’s Flex Fund. SEAF’s European fund structures are domiciled in the Netherlands, deepening the Amsterdam hub.
SEAF Advisory Services B.V. is established and co-located with FACP in Amsterdam, with a mandate to develop advisory services jointly between SEAF, CEED and Financial Access.
FACP and SEAF operate on an integrated basis from the shared Amsterdam hub. Financial Access advisory mandates are executed in tandem with SEAF Advisory Services, combining FA’s banking advisory franchise with SEAF’s global investment network, analytical capacity and impact track record.
One heritage, focused businesses
Financial Advisory
FACP’s core financial services advisory business, executed today in tandem with SEAF Advisory Services from Amsterdam, with senior partners in Europe and Asia.
FACTS East Africa
A fintech SME finance company founded by Financial Access, offering platform-driven factoring and reverse factoring (supply chain finance) in Kenya and Uganda, with SEAF among its institutional investors.
Agri-Finance Consulting
A specialised team developing smallholder and climate-smart agricultural credit solutions, built within FA and successfully spun off to its management — a model of the group’s ability to incubate.
Advisory services across the full life of a financial institution
From sector-wide reform design for governments and multilaterals, to the diagnostic, restructuring and rebuilding of individual institutions, to products, channels and people — our mandates range from strategy to implementation, including interim line management within client institutions.
Government & Financial Sector Advisory
Financial sector reform plans; regulatory and legal assistance; bank supervision and surveillance; deposit insurance institutions; bank resolution mechanisms including AMC design and establishment; capital markets and treasury development.
Bank Restructuring & Turnaround
Financial analysis and performance diagnostics; non-performing loan management; strategic and financial repositioning; recapitalisation support; numerous turnaround interventions delivered on-site.
Corporate Finance & Capital Markets
Privatisations and equitisations of state-owned enterprises; capital raising for financial institutions; sovereign debt management advisory; innovative structures for DFI and private investment; M&A and acquisition due diligence support.
Management Support & Interim Management
Resident advisers and short-term experts; secondment of direct line managers up to CEO and COO level; on-the-job coaching and know-how transfer embedded in every engagement.
Operational Improvement & Training
Corporate governance, organisation and HR; risk management and compliance; product development, sales and marketing; branch management; financial management and internal controls; ALM/treasury; IT & MIS — supported by a full range of training partners from graduate intake to board level.
Retail, SME & Corporate Banking
Direct, mobile and network-based financial services, including a unique competence in post office-based banking from our ING/Postbank heritage; project and structured finance; receivables finance, factoring and leasing.
Sustainable Banking
Environmental and social risk management systems (ESMS) and reporting, designed to DFI and IFC performance standards and embedded in enterprise risk management frameworks.
Agricultural & Supply Chain Finance
Financing solutions at every level of the supply chain — from smallholder and climate-resilient lending schemes to corporate-level structures — using multiple data sources to build and calibrate sophisticated borrower selection and assessment engines.
Investor know-how, built in
Working with SEAF, FA Capital sponsors investment transactions and advises institutional investors on funds and secondary transactions: fund management and advisory, deal origination, due diligence, post-investment intervention and fund raising.
As founders and operators of FACTS East Africa — a working-capital-focused financial institution active in Kenya and Uganda — we bring operational, principal-level insight to receivables financing, SME finance, agri-finance, supply chain finance and private healthcare finance that few advisory firms can match.
Selected assignments
A selection from more than 250 assignments in over 40 countries, spanning sector reform, institution building, transactions and trade finance. Engagements have been sponsored by, among others, the World Bank and IFC, ADB, EBRD, AfDB, KfW and FMO, as well as private owners and investors.
Asia
Mongolia · Vietnam · Indonesia · Myanmar · Cambodia · China · Pakistan · Kyrgyz Republic · Papua New GuineaNational AMC Design
Mandated (in consortium with KAMCO) to evaluate banking-sector asset quality and to design and implement a centralised public asset management company, a voluntary corporate restructuring framework, and the privatisation of a state-owned lender.
Sovereign Wealth Fund Roadmap
Produced a complete roadmap for the institution of Mongolia’s sovereign wealth fund: legal, governance and policy frameworks, implementation plan, HR and capacity-building strategy, and sample investment mandates.
Trade & Development Bank
Interim CEO and COO seconded alongside experts in risk, operations, HR, treasury and ALM. Business volumes and profitability rose significantly; shareholders subsequently sold the bank at a considerable premium.
Mongolia Mortgage Corporation
Technical assistance to MIK under a KfW-funded programme to develop affordable home financing schemes and deepen the Mongolian financial system.
Bank Privatisation M&A
M&A due diligence and strategic advisory to a multinational banking organisation around the pending privatisation of a state-owned bank.
Techcombank — Multi-Channel Banking
Strategy development and implementation planning for e-banking and multi-channel distribution as part of a broader review of retail and SME positioning.
NIFSEEP Knowledge Exchange
Netherlands–Indonesia Financial Sector Expertise Exchange Programme: governance, risk management, MSME banking, sustainable banking and renewable energy & infrastructure financing.
Bank South Pacific
Performance scan against international best practice followed by a multi-year institution-building programme with interim line managers, focused on a sound MSME banking model in difficult market conditions.
Tangshan Commercial Bank
Institution building for a regional bank: strategy, retail build-out and a sub-branded private bank, with on-the-job and classroom training delivered by on-site experts.
Europe & Central Asia
Ukraine · Georgia · Azerbaijan · RegionalBanking Sector Reform
Supporting the National Bank of Ukraine’s reform strategy: performance scans of approximately twenty banks, with ten selected for full institution-building programmes aligned to international standards.
Kor Standard Bank
Owner-mandated performance scan, restructuring and operational enhancement programme, carried through from diagnostic to implementation.
Azerpost Financial Services
Introduction of nationwide basic financial services through the post office network: head-office reorganisation, HRM and planning capability, financial management and MIS, marketing and IT procurement.
Institution-Building Programmes
EBRD framework engagements with mid-sized regional banks covering risk management, internal audit and information technology, alongside trade finance advisory to multiple banks in Ukraine and Georgia.
Africa & Middle East
Nigeria · Cameroon · Cape Verde · UAEMajor Bank Acquisition — PE Consortium
Retained by an international private equity consortium acquiring a major Nigerian bank (400 branches, 100-year history): due diligence, post-acquisition management team assembly, transformation programme design and mobilisation of international support.
Bank Investment Advisory
Multi-year support to a private equity investor in a major regional banking institution: due diligence, NPL valuations, financial modelling, and the design of 100-day and three-year transformation programmes.
Union Bank of Nigeria — NPL Advisory
Advice to the bank’s new management on non-performing loan management as recapitalisation and AMCON negotiations approached.
Commercial Bank Restructuring
Performance diagnostic and a restructuring and recapitalisation plan for a major commercial bank, with implementable measures to address critical weaknesses.
Caixa Económica de Cabo Verde
Diagnostic and implementation support on behalf of FMO, with advice and training focused on NPL and asset-liability management.
Dubai Bank — Risk Management
Technical assistance strengthening commercial and SME banking risk management practices, processes and functions following the post-2009 rise in non-performing loans.
Global Trade Finance
A signature practice, principally for IFC and EBRDMulti-Market Trade Finance Programmes
Repeat mandates under IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program: multi-bank training and capacity building across francophone Africa and the Caribbean, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Mauritania and Nigeria.
Bank Trade Appraisals & eLearning
Trade appraisals of banks in India and Sri Lanka for the GTFP, and the design and rollout of new components of IFC’s internal trade finance eLearning modules.
Ecobank & Orabank Trade Finance
Multi-year trade finance training across Ecobank’s African network and for Orabank, building in-house training capacity and practical South–South trade casework.
An advisory franchise inside a global impact investor
Alongside management, FA Capital’s institutional co-founding shareholder is SEAF — the Small Enterprise Assistance Funds — the Washington, DC-headquartered pioneer of impact private equity investing in the SME sector of frontier and underserved markets, with more than 35 years of operation, over 400 risk-capital investments, and funds managed across Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
Today, SEAF and Financial Access operate on a fully integrated basis. FA’s advisory assignments are executed in tandem with SEAF Advisory Services from the shared Amsterdam hub, combining FA’s banking advisory franchise with investor know-how, analytical capacity from the private equity perspective, and access to SEAF’s worldwide network of investment offices and professionals.
SEAF has separately invested in FA’s SME finance affiliate in East Africa, FACTS, which operates a platform-driven supply chain finance business in Kenya and Uganda.
What the combination delivers
Advisory-driven debt and fund-management mandates; a deeper financial institutions network; high-level access to governments, IFIs and corporates as a trusted adviser; and proprietary insight into investable situations and asset classes arising from restructurings and reform.
The Amsterdam hub
FACP and SEAF Advisory Services share their base in Amsterdam — SEAF’s European hub for fund domiciliation, investor relations and business development across Western European impact-investor networks.
Learn more about SEAF
Explore SEAF’s funds, impact reporting and global team at www.seaf.com.
Talk to us
For advisory mandates, partnership enquiries or further information about Financial Access Capital Partners and its work with the SEAF group, please get in touch.
- Contact
- Jan Cherim — Director, Financial Access Capital Partners B.V.
Vice Chair EMEA, SEAF - jcherim@seaf.com
- Telephone
- +31 6 25 01 55 53
- Office
- Financial Access Capital Partners B.V.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands - SEAF Group
- www.seaf.com