NMB, SatF ink deal to boost financial inclusion

Dar es Salaam. NMB Bank has teamed up with Savings at the Frontier (SatF) to introduce a unique financial inclusion model aimed at serving thousands of savings and credit groups across the country.
SatF is a partnership between Mastercard Foundation and Oxford Policy Management.
Through the partnership, NMB and SatF aim to provide financial solutions to over 28,000 financially excluded groups across the country.
The model allows groups and group members to use the bank’s digital advantage which gives them room to self-open group and indi-vidual accounts through their mobile phones.
 They will also manage member activities without making physical visits to branches while safely and securely saving their excess funds as they take advantage of the grow-ing network of banking agents and mobile money integration.
The new model is an enhance-ment of the ‘NMB Pamoja Account’ which targets Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC), Village Community Banks (Vicoba), Community Based Savings Groups (CBSG), Community Based Organizations (CBO), Family and Friends Groups, and links them to the bank with the widest branch network in the country.

NMB Bank’s acting managing director Ruth Zaipuna said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the goal was to bridge the gap between the supply of formal financial services and informal savings groups by improv-ing access to financial services.

“This is an enhancement of the current groups saving product named NMB Pamoja Account for affordable, convenient and easy to access banking services.”NMB Pamoja is fully integrated with the NMB Chap Chap account.

This allows groups and members to seamlessly transfer funds between groups and individual accounts while incurring zero fees.
 The platform allows savings group members to access formal financial services for the first time.
According to Ms Zaipuna, the product is simple and convenient because it can be accessed via the bank’s digital account opening platform.
SatF team leader Janet Hayes said: “The partnership between NMB and SatF is a great opportunity to test a sustainable and scalable model that could really benefit informal savers in Tanzania and contribute to Bank of Tanzania’s plan for increasing financial inclusion, especially among women.”