BBS confident of scaling greater heights
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday April 15, 2026 10:42
Pedzani Tafa is not looking for blind patriotism. She explains that BBS Bank is a fully-fledged commercial bank with a suite of products and services that serve customers’ domestic and foreign needs.
Three years into the initial five-year strategic plan that has guided the bank since it began commercial banking operations in 2022, Tafa says there is value in building an entity whose returns directly contribute to growth within the economy.
She spoke as the bank unveiled softer results for the year ended December 2025, owing largely to strained liquidity in the financial sector which raised interest costs and wiped out interest revenues.
Mmegi: In the five-year strategy, are these losses for 2025 something that you said, ‘look, we're going to face this at some point during this five-year period?’
Tafa: We anticipated it and our maiden strategy called Pilediwa essentially was meant to transform the bank from the building society into a fully-fledged commercial bank. We were quite aware that, one, we are a late entrant into the commercial banking space and, two, that we expected that we would launch all these commercial banking products and services.
And it's not only products and services. It is all the related systems, all the related risk frameworks, digitisation, all of those that would facilitate for us to function effectively as a commercial bank for the convenience of our customers and also for ease of running the organisation. So, we knew upfront, within this five-year period, what the possible outcomes could be.
Obviously, you don't anticipate beforehand that liquidity in Year Three will be a challenge, but it happens. Those are the normal business cycles that do happen and we do know that headwinds do occur. But all things being equal, we did know that these first five years would be very heavy on set-up costs and that the take-up of our products and services would be steady.
Therefore, the outcomes of a steady take-up could result in these kinds of scenarios.
Mmegi: Just talk to us a bit about how you attract deposits in a period of tightening liquidity, in a period of competition in the market. How do you go about as the youngest bank attracting those deposits?
Tafa: The youngest or otherwise, you have to go into the market headfirst. So we compete just like any commercial bank would and that's what we are; we are a commercial bank.
We have products that are geared to attracting customers to deposit their money here and that's why this first maiden transformative strategy was to launch products and services that would enable us to be just as competitive.
So within the first three years of our transformation, we have been able and we have successfully launched those products that would attract customers and as they do take up our products, we are mobilising deposits, fixed deposits, savings accounts, current accounts, different types of accounts, attracting deposits to them come into the bank.
We attract also just by being visible and you will notice that we are very active on the social media spaces. We are present in most of, if not all the towns across the country and we remain visible such as on billboards and so on. Those are all geared to ensure that we are known as a commercial bank and that our customers can come in and have accounts with us.
Mmegi: The year 2025 marked about three years since BBS began commercial banking operations. You've had a mixed performance during that time. When do you see the bank stabilising or is there a question that maybe the market is proving too tough for BBS?
Tafa: The bank will stabilise. Obviously, in the transformative years, there's a lot of expenditure, especially with regard to the set-up costs that we have to incur.
Throughout the five-year strategy, we had planned what we would be launching in Year One, Year Two, Year Three, Year Four, right up to Year Five. So, we expect that as we complete the set-ups per year, the consumption of our products and services will increase year-on-year following the launches.
Also, I think it is known that when you start up a particular business, it doesn't become profitable in the first years.
In addition, when you look at Botswana, the limited population obviously means that the customers that you want to bring on board are multi-banked and so you are moving customers across banks and that is not a quick decision to make.
So we know that the uptake of our products and services will be gradual and as we reduce our set-up costs and increase the consumption of our products and services, the bank will stabilise.
The support that we need from our current customers and potential customers is actually support where they actually open accounts with BBS Bank, not where they app reciate just from discussions about BBS Bank being an indigenous bank, but actual support.
Actual support is what will then translate into the usage of our products and services and ultimately into profitability of BBS Bank, where these profits will accumulate and as they accumulate, we will then be able, from retained earnings, to pay dividends to our shareholders.
So it's important to realise that the support really has to be actioned on, not just spoken about. That is what will ultimately stabilise the bank into profitability, for it then to be sustainable going forward.
Mmegi: Having been a commercial bank or having held the license for three years, what do you find is the attitude of Batswana to the bank? Is there a thing where people say, ‘look we are so used to the commercial banks being the multinational South African banks and we're used to their branding?’ Or have you found that because they know BBS is indigenous and has been there for decades as a society, they are eager to be loyal to BBS?
Tafa: The attitudes have been quite positive and Batswana speak about the pride of having an indigenous bank and how they are willing to support. We now need to see that willingness translate into a shift on actual bringing their banking to BBS Bank.
That is where I find it is slower than the spoken support. That is also why we are consciously ensuring that we are visible, as well as making sure our products are known to be there so that if they still think of BBS Bank as a place to stack your savings, they now need to have a mindset change to knowing that it has transitioned from what it used to be, to being a fully-fledged commercial bank where all other services and products are now available.
So we are doing quite a lot to publicise the kind of products and the capabilities that we have so that whilst they support and are willing to support an indigenous bank, they should physically now walk through our doors and open these accounts.
Also, remember, the reason why we go on and on about BBS Bank being an indigenous bank is because one of our reasons for existing is to create sustainable wealth which means sustainable wealth to our different stakeholders.
This includes our staff, creating jobs in our country, our shareholders where they know that as the owners of BBS Bank, whatever profitability that BBS Bank then makes, it then comes back to them as well as contributing to the growth and success of the economy of the country.
We also want to be responsible in executing our corporate social responsibility. BBS Bank supports, for instance, a school in Zutshwa where we've built libraries, an ablution block, supporting the children with books, some of the needy children with uniforms, stationery and those kinds of things.
But we want to contribute effectively in this country and we will do it successfully with the support of Batswana. If they make a conscious decision to come and bank with us, this profitability that we will retain will ultimately be distributed in this economy and that is what the benefit of being an indigenous bank is.