Stanbic promotes savings culture

Pauline Dikuelo | Friday July 14, 2017 16:29

Addressing the media this week, the bank’s chief executive officer Leina Gabaraane said the low bank rates are a double edge sword in the sense that as much as it affects them it also acts to stimulate the economy through cheaper credit for productive lending.

“The reason why monetary policy supports low bank rates is to try stimulate economic growth by getting people to borrow more because when there is great economic activity, it helps stimulate the economy,” he said.

According to Gabaraane, as a bank they have continued to develop products that would make savings attractive as well as offer loan products that are suited to the current environment.

Recently the bank introduced Koketso Savings Account, which encourages a culture of savings on their clientele.

When opening the account, with savings a little as a P100, a client automatically qualifies to enter a competition, which will see someone walking away with a P25,000 prize.

In their endeavour to boost the SMEs participation in the economy, the bank has in the past introduced Purchase Order Financing (POF), which was aimed at empowering the SMEs to participate in the country’s economy.

Through this, an entrepreneur can tender for any government projects and provide purchase order to get finance from the bank to deliver the project.

“This product has continued to be well received as it encourages trade activity and creates jobs in turn as most of these SMEs are usually business people who have had the capability but lacked funding; so we have bridged that gap,” he said.

He further said they continue to take part in different sectors across the country to drive the economy including tourism, which he said will help drive economic diversification away from the diamond sector.

In addition, he said they have also played a role in diamond beneficiation by financing companies as well as funding some of the project in the energy and agricultural sectors.

Standard Bank Group regional head of corporate investment, Chris Clarkson said Stanbic Botswana continues to drive performance in line with the group’s strategy and had continued to yield growth with each financial year adding that the bank is one of the leading performers across their regional footprint.

“We continue to grow our footprint across Sub-Saharan Africa as we intend to also take part in the real estate sector, telecommunications, infrastructure, energy, consumer just to mention a few,” he said.