New lender HCH targets Uganda’s SME Financing Gap With Invoice Finance to Unlock Working Capital

September 1, 2026 in Financial Services, Trade & Industry by Editor

HCH Financial Services is targeting Uganda’s SME financing gap with alternative working-capital solutions that allow businesses to borrow against cash tied up in invoices, contracts and purchase orders.

 

HCH Financial Services is taking a stab at Uganda’s business-financing market, bringing a non-bank model aimed at helping small and medium-sized enterprises unlock working capital tied up in invoices, contracts and purchase orders.

The new offer points to a gradual deepening of Uganda’s notoriously shallow financial system, where commercial banks have traditionally dominated formal lending while loan sharks have filled some of the gaps left by conventional finance.

The company, which began operations in Uganda in 2019, is offering invoice discounting, contract financing, local purchase order (LPO) financing and bridge financing, targeting businesses that need cash to execute contracts or bridge the gap between supplying goods and receiving payment.

For businesses, the significance of this diversification lies not simply in having another source of credit, but in the emergence of financing instruments tailored to the way companies actually generate cash.

Instead of requiring a borrower to rely primarily on conventional collateral and a standard term loan, supply-chain finance can use an existing invoice, contract or purchase order as the basis for unlocking working capital.

This can be particularly important for SMEs that have won business but lack the liquidity required to fulfil the contract.

HCH’s invoice-discounting product, for example, enables businesses to raise cash against invoices owed by their customers, while its contract-financing facility provides funding against qualifying contracts. LPO financing similarly targets suppliers that have secured orders but need working capital to execute them.

The model addresses the mismatch between when expenditure has to be made and when revenue is ultimately received; one of the persistent challenges facing smaller businesses.

A contractor may have a signed contract but still need money for labour and materials. A supplier may have delivered goods but have to wait weeks or months for payment. A company caught in that cycle can be profitable on paper while remaining cash-strapped in practice.

Specialised financial intermediaries such as HCH seek to turn those future receivables into immediate liquidity.

The company is also placing technology at the centre of its model, allowing customers to apply online and submit financing documentation for appraisal and verification. HCH says successful applications can be processed and funded within 24 to 72 hours, depending on completion of the required documentation.

Its target market cuts across sectors including information technology, telecommunications, transport and logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, wholesale, medical supplies, energy and oil and gas, construction and donor-funded projects.

The breadth of the target market reflects the wider opportunity for specialised financial services as Uganda’s economy becomes more formalised and businesses increasingly participate in structured supply chains.

For the financial sector, the significance of such players could extend beyond the individual loans they provide.

Financial sector deepening is not simply about increasing the amount of money in circulation but also the range of institutions, products and risk-management mechanisms through which capital moves from those with funds to those who can productively deploy them.

Uganda’s financial system remains heavily bank-centred, making the development of specialised lenders potentially important for improving access to finance for businesses that do not fit neatly into traditional bank-credit models.

HCH’s proposition consequently puts it in a growing space between conventional banking and informal credit — seeking to provide structured financing based on the underlying strength of a transaction rather than simply the borrower’s balance sheet.

That distinction could become increasingly important as SMEs seek financing to participate in larger corporate, government and regional supply chains.

The challenge for HCH and similar alternative financiers, however, will be to scale without compromising credit discipline. Financing invoices and contracts still carries risks around the quality of the underlying customer, contract execution, payment delays and fraud.

The ability to manage those risks while delivering faster and more flexible financing will determine whether alternative finance can move beyond being a niche complement to banks and become a meaningful component of Uganda’s financial architecture.

HCH’s arrival therefore part of a broader shift towards a deeper financial ecosystem in which banks, specialised finance companies and other intermediaries serve different segments of the economy and different forms of commercial risk.

For Uganda’s SMEs, that could ultimately mean that access to finance depends less on finding a conventional loan and more on finding the financial instrument that best matches the business opportunity at hand.