In March 2011, the FSDT’s Board approved a project to establish a special fund called “SME Finance Innovation Challenge Fund (SME Finance ICF)” to stimulate innovation among banks and other financial institutions in Tanzania. Through this project, FSDT aims to support projects testing innovative concepts, technologies and business models that will deliver new products and better services to underserved SME clients. It was observed that, the SME market in Tanzania lacked variety of financial products/services to suit the SMEs largely due to limited “innovation” and often considered it to be costly and risky.
