TPB moves financial services to rural areas

TPB Bank PLC in partnership with the Savings at the Frontier (SatF) programme, yesterday launched an innovative 1 million US dollar project to connect the bank with savings groups in Tanzania.

The overall aim is to help Tanzanians in rural and periurban areas to save money safely and conveniently through their mobile phones.

Speaking during a joint news conference in Dar es Salaam, TPB Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Sabasaba Moshingi said the project will start in Ruvuma and then expand to Mtwara, Lindi, Njombe, Iringa and Morogoro.

“Digitising Informal Savings Mechanisms’ project will run for three years. Through the project, TPB plans to create financial linkages with 300,000 new customers by the year 2020,” said Mr Moshingi.

The CEO further said TPB was the first bank in Tanzania to introduce mass-market mobile banking under the name TPB POPOTE. It has now created a group mobile platform that allows groups to save, take loans and make contributions to their social funds, all via their mobile phones. Mr Moshingi said Tanzanians with very low and erratic incomes in rural and peri-urban areas face the main known challenge of proximity to a financial service provider.

TPB’s solution allows a group and individual to use technology and save digitally, making it safer, cheaper as well as more convenient and more transparent. TPB plans to take an even more central role in promoting financial inclusion and fostering an environment that will improve the socio-economic well-being of every Tanzanian.

The SatF’s Programme Manager, Mr Steve Peachey said his organisation is in partnership with MasterCard Foundation and Oxford Policy Management to improve the financial inclusion of low-income individuals and communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

TPB is the first partner institution that the organisation (SatF), will be working with in Tanzania, Ghana and Zambia, he said.

“What attracted SatF to partner with TPB is the boldness of its initiative and the way it wants to help individuals create their own groups with financial linkage built in from the start,” Mr Peachey said.