Last year the government merged Twiga Bancorp, Tanzania Women Bank (TWB) and TPB Bank. Business Week Reporter Gadiosa Lamtey interviewed TBP chief executive officer Sabasaba Moshingi about the progress of the merger.
QUESTION: TPB Plc has inherited debts and resources of TWB and Twiga Bancorp following the merger. How does that affect the business and how far have you gone in collecting debts?.
ANSWER: The decision is crucial to the stability of the entire banking system, especially in ensuring security of customer’s deposits.
The resources that TPB received after the merger with the Twiga and TWB are used to maximize the efficiency and delivery of the bank. The customers of the two banks continue to pay according to the agreement between the banks and their customers. Last year a total of Sh1.96 billion was collected from debtors.
After the merger how does the performance of the bank look like?
After the TPB bank merged, the capital growth and efficiency increased, and the number of branches increased. TPB is performing well and efficiency has been increasing day after day, the profit before tax has reached the targets that TPB had set for 2018.
What do you think made the government to give TPB the two banks?
The good performance of the TPB in recent years was factor that gave the government trust and the ability to hand over the two banks to the TPB. The government is also in its efforts to merge its organizations to give them more strength and stability.
What was the performance for last year?
The performance of the TPB in 2018 was a good and highest level as the bank made profit after tax. All major projects have been implemented to a large percentage, including the process of changing its banking system and setting up a new and modern system called Rubikon.
In line with the current digital speed of the TPB Bank in 2018 it invested more in technology and was enabled to buy its own Getaway, also it plans to open 10 new ATMs in various areas so that services are available through agents and through mobile application ‘TPB Popote’.
The banking revenue has continued to grow annually with 2018 revenue amounting to Sh115 billion from Sh107 billion previous year equivalent to 7 per cent.
Profit before tax for the year 2018 was Sh20.6 billion from Sh18.4 billion in the previous year which is an increase of 12 per cent.
By December last year, the bank had a total of Sh425 billion lent to its customers, equivalent to an increase of 30 per cent from Sh327 billion in the previous year.
What is the plan for 2019/2020?
In 2019, the bank intends to strengthen its effectiveness by increasing the number of its ATMs, repairing its branches as well as increasing the number of new branches to expand the network so as to reach more people, particularly the most vulnerable, with financial services in rural and urban areas, to make more improvement in the IT systems, increase banking capacity and use a variety of ways to enhance its capitalisation, improve its appearance and strengthen disaster risk management and internal controls.
After the merger, how does your bank compete with the other banks?
After the merger the bank has grown better with more branches and more customers. So the bank will continue to be a competitive bank for other banks in the country and increasingly differentiates through its best service providers.
How is the bank implementing the industrialisation drive?
TPB believes in an industrial economy and has been issuing loans to smallholders and groups and provides training as well as empowerment to enable them to establish small industries.
The bank has also been issuing loans to small and large investors who plan to establish industries or want to increase their capacity of manufacturing.
