The Small and Micro Enterprise (SME) of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services contributes to empowering poor and low-income citizens especially women by supporting them in developing micro economic projects that help them in improving their economic and living conditions and that provide real employment opportunities for them and for others.

The Small and Micro Enterprise Unit (SME) is a major member in the Arab network “Sanabel”. The unit has been awarded a certificate in transparency for its distinguished loaning program from the international organization Mix Market for three successive years.

The Small and Micro Enterprise Unit of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services was classified among the best one hundred loaning agencies at world level in 2009. This was based on the world classification carried out by Mix Market. This classification is based on about twenty indicators for measuring success. CEOSS’ loaning program ranked 74 worldwide.

The Small and Micro Enterprise Unit (SME) provides its services to citizens in poor slum and rural areas through twenty-one branches in the governorates of Cairo, Giza, Qalyoubia, Beni-Suef, Minia, and Assyut.

The Small and Micro Enterprise Program aims at:-

• Increasing the income of target groups.
• Empowering women economically.
• Helping persons with disabilities to integrate in their communities through economic empowerment.
• Developing the skills of economic project owners through training and technical support.

The Small and Micro Enterprise Unit provides both its financial and non-financial services as follows:

First: Financial Services:

• Loans for individuals targeting owners of small enterprises and youth who are in need of financial support. This ranges between EGP 2.750 and EGP 100.000.
• Group loans that target women especially heads of households to help them in developing their small enterprises or to start new ones. Group loans depend on members of the group guaranteeing each other. A group is formed of a number of women ranging from 4 to 10. If one woman cannot repay an installment, the group pays for her. The loan ranges from EGP 900 to EGP 2000.

Second: Non-financial Services:

This is achieved through providing technical support throughout the whole week as well as training opportunities for beneficiaries in order to reach the highest rates of performance and administrative efficiency of their enterprises.

What sets us Apart

• Our easy and flexible procedures.
• Our quick performance: the time between submitting an application and delivering the loan to the client does not exceed a week.
• Our low cost loans as we are a non-profit organization.
• Our service is delivered to your place of work through the loaning staff member.
• No mortgages or major guarantees that the client cannot provide are requested.
• We provide clients with continuous follow up services.
• We provide training services through an advisory body of university professors in order increase the skills of our clients in administration and marketing.
• We conduct an on-site feasibility study of the client’s enterprise.
• We provide loaning services for official enterprises (complete enterprise documents) and unofficial enterprises (enterprises without official documents).