Woodhall Capital Leads High-Level Factoring Workshop at Afreximbank AGM, Driving New Liquidity Pathways for African SMEs 

 
Mary Nnah
 
 
Woodhall Capital spearheaded a landmark factoring workshop at the 2025 Afreximbank Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja, driving new liquidity pathways for African Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
Led by Mrs. Moji Hunponu-Wusu, President of Woodhall Capital, the workshop, themed “Factor Forward: Advancing Factoring in Nigeria and Beyond,” positions her as a bold voice in African finance and a catalyst for unlocking the continent’s next wave of SME-driven growth.
 
Hosted in strategic partnership with NEXIM Bank, Afreximbank, and SEWA Capital Limited, the high-level workshop brought together over 200 stakeholders from the financial, policy, export, fintech, and legal sectors.
Hunponu-Wusu’s deep insights and conviction reframed factoring from a niche product to a mission-critical financial tool for Africa’s development.
 
In her opening remarks, Hunponu-Wusu challenged long-held assumptions about liquidity in the African business landscape, stating, “Too often, we treat unpaid invoices as dead weight, when in fact, they are trapped value. Factoring isn’t just a financing option; it is a liberation tool. It enables businesses to convert performance into power. We don’t need more theories; we need tools. And this is one of the most powerful we have.”
 
With clarity and conviction, Hunponu-Wusu called for a transformation in how Africa’s SMEs access working capital, urging policymakers, financial institutions, and innovators to make factoring as mainstream as loans or equity. She emphasised that factoring allows businesses to unlock capital without debt or dilution, a lifeline especially vital for asset-light, high-performance enterprises.
 
The workshop featured two technically rich panel discussions and dynamic breakout sessions. The first explored the regional factoring landscape, dissecting regulatory inconsistencies, credit risk, and barriers to adoption. The second panel guided businesses on structuring, documenting, and implementing factoring strategies.
 
Strategic partners enriched the conversation with their institutional perspectives. Afreximbank spotlighted its Model Law on Factoring, a framework designed to harmonise receivables finance legislation across African countries. The bank called on Nigeria and other member states to adopt the model, thereby creating the legal clarity needed to scale factoring continent-wide.
 
NEXIM Bank, represented by its Managing Director Mr. Abba Bello, underscored factoring’s relevance for non-oil exporters struggling with payment delays. He affirmed the bank’s readiness to co-develop demonstration projects that apply factoring to real trade challenges, especially in agro-processing and manufacturing.
 
SEWA Capital Limited, led by Mrs. Angela Jide-Jones, brought a social finance lens to the discussion. Praising Hunponu-Wusu’s leadership, she said, “This workshop is exactly what Africa needs—vision backed by execution. Factoring is especially empowering for women-led and youth-led enterprises that have contracts but lack collateral. Moji is helping us finance performance, not just property.”
 
One of the event’s most impactful features was the Factoring Readiness Clinic, a hands-on diagnostic session where SMEs submitted real invoices for immediate eligibility evaluation. Many businesses discovered that, with a few structural adjustments, they could access working capital through factoring without ever approaching a bank for a loan.
 
In a bold next step, Hunponu-Wusu announced the Factoring Enablement Programme, a flagship initiative of Woodhall Capital that will guide SMEs through the full factoring lifecycle. From contract audits to service provider matchmaking and digital integration, the program is designed to turn workshop learnings into real financing outcomes. SEWA Capital and NEXIM Bank will co-anchor the program with technical and policy support.
 
The workshop concluded with a communique calling for the swift adoption of the Afreximbank Model Law in Nigeria, the establishment of a national receivables registry, and tax incentives for early adopters of factoring. The document reflects Hunponu-Wusu’s belief that systemic change requires not just dialogue, but direction.
 
For her, factoring is more than a product, it’s a paradigm shift. “This is not about introducing new jargon. This is about rewriting how we think about capital. African SMEs are rich in performance. We need to start financing them accordingly,” she said.