| Lyna Mohamad |

GO BEYOND Brunei and don’t constraint yourself with cupcakes and Nasi Katok, Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam (BIBD) Head of Retail Banking Hajah Nurul Akmar binti Haji Md Jaafar urged local entrepreneurs.

Addressing the media during a recent press conference, Hajah Nurul Akmar sharing some insight about the BIBD’s Catalyst programme noted that with its commitment as the largest bank in Brunei, they want to bring the experts and the local entrepreneurs together along with well-known brands so that they will take all good things from these brands and refine further.

In the first year of their collaboration, they had a session with almost 100 plus local start-ups. It was held at DARe (Darussalam Enterprise). Last year a programme, BIBD Catalyst, was designed.

“Catalysts will focus on the businesses which can grow and are established but we want them to accelerate further. So we have to pilot this for a certain number of members first because it is a test and trial arrangement,” she added.

BIBD not only focusses on banking. It is also community driven where the BIBD wants to give back to the community. BIBD’s CSR pillars education entrepreneurship is one of them.

“We are going fast forward with all these initiatives under the CSR pillars which is pretty much giving back to the community and wanting the community to realise that BIBD is not just a bank but BIBD is also a partner in every life aspirations,” Hajah Nurul Akmar said.

What BIBD wants to do is to create a programme that is sustainable. Hopefully founders of FashionValet as one of the catalyst mentors, have the same values in investing time for local entrepreneurs and they believe the passion will drive the values into a much more bigger purpose, she said.

Within the catalysts, some are start-ups but with limited production. FashionValet Pop Up needed more than that and they have to choose those who have enough to showcase throughout the Pop-Up.

“The Pop-Up event is also for them to assess how they market their products, how they interact and engage with customers and how they identify the designs in tune with the current trends and so forth. FashionValet is also interacting with them through hands-on mentoring.”

Hajah Nurul Akmar pointed out that there will be other programmes as well before they graduate.

“That is why BIBD brought in DARe which has a soon-to-be launched growth programme and hopefully catalysts will be the first to ride on that programme.”

She pointed out that BIBD has to focus on which segment of the entrepreneurs the catalyst participants are focussing on and want to help them first as they understand the business and the struggles and with mentors they will be able to fast track.

“We feel the collaboration is very effective especially to the locals because we keep telling the entrepreneurs to think beyond Brunei. Being a small population, the Brunei market is so small. Our entrepreneurs need to think beyond Brunei because the world is so seamless now. So don’t constraint yourself with cupcakes and Nasi Katok but go beyond that and this is what we keep telling the entrepreneurs and the start-ups.