Letshego drives financial inclusion in Mozambique
Staff Writer | Tuesday September 27, 2016 16:30
The Letshego BlueBox is a tool for advancing the financial inclusion agenda of Letshego, and of the Government of Mozambique. The BlueBox is a means by which Letshego gives tools to agents and empowers them with basic knowledge on how to roll out the model within their communities.
It includes tools that give them financial education and awareness through apps and enables them to register customers into a financial ecosystem in a simple, quick and affordable manner. Agents can then pass this education onto their customers. Customers will save, make payments and have access to credit by using basic mobile phones.
Travel time is reduced for rural customers who would otherwise need to travel as much as 250km to find their nearest financial services institution.
The BlueBox supports real time and on site customer queries, and this is in addition to access to the Letshego call centre.
Also, customers can also transfer payments to all networks, making the solution simple and flexible.
The Letshego access, anytime, anywhere account will be called “LetsGo”. This is the account that customers can operate through the various channels offered by Letshego to receive simple, appropriate and affordable solutions, including through agency banking channels .
“In Mozambique, with a population of 14 million, only 20% have bank accounts, pointing to a very real financial inclusion challenge. The team have been hard at work identifying and developing a solution which further enables us as Letshego to work alongside the public sector – that is, Government – to make the vision of a financially inclusive Mozambique a reality,” said CEO at Banco Letshego, Chipiliro Katundu.
“The BlueBox is a simple yet effective tool with potential for great impact. It helps close delivery gaps in rural areas across the country, reducing the average cost of a typical financial transaction and even facilitating basic account opening. We are confident this is the kind of solution that can wield an enormous impact in advancing our own as well as the national agenda as regards financial inclusion.”
Banco Letshego comprises 12 branches across all provinces in the country and serving over 60,000 customers through a hub and spoke model.
Already, the business has a strong reputation for its financial inclusion advancements, leveraging the Letshego group Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) partnership, and the strong relations with local Government and partners in country.