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| Rene Meza (right) and Ammish Owusu – Amoah in a press conference at Vodacom headquarters, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. |
- Agents to get loans at low interest
- It also launches M-pesa cash and deposit services
BANK OF AFRICA – TANZANIA has entered into partnership with the Tanzania’s leading communication company, Vodacom which will enable telecom’s company distributors to secure loans without a collateral security at favorable terms and provide better services to their clients.
Under the new arrangement between Vodacom and one of the leading Banks in Africa, Vodacom distributors will be in position to secure loans worth up to 6 times their average commission earned over a 6 months period. Distributors will be entitled to take a loan worth Tsh 10 million and above while the maximum loan they can get is Tshs 75 million. The interest rate is 1.7%per month and the loan is payable in one year.
Vodacom’s Tanzania Managing Director, Rene Meza, said at the launch of this initiative that this scheme has been initiated to financially empower distributors who have been commissioned task of ensuring availability of vouchers to customer’s country wide.
“This scheme will of course empower them and provide better services to our customers while also having their businesses grow through growth of sales turnover.”Said Meza
“For us in Vodacom this arrangement is important to our distributors who are expected to cope with the rapidly rising number of customers who require reliable services. We urge them to make use of this rare opportunity “Said Meza.
On his side the Bank’s CEO Ammish Owusu – Amoah noted that “the partnership marks a new era for the Bank, for its customers, and the general public. We understand the quest of customers in accessing financing solutions in Tanzania, particularly SME in order to boost their businesses
“As a Bank we are committed to this business. We have set up a dedicated unit to manage these types of services and dedicated windows across all branches to provide this service” said Ammish
Since M-pesa service was introduced in Tanzania it has become very popular and today is a big business facilitator as well as employment provider. M-pesa now has more than 70,000 agents countrywide.
Our territory distributor financing scheme which we are launching today seeks to enable Vodacom distributors access to additional working capital financing in the form of overdraft facilities. The loans range from TZS 10ml up to TZS 75 ml in the first phase of the program. The distributors can then be able to secure additional funding of amounts greater than TZS 75million upon satisfactorily servicing their initial loan amounts.
However, the bank is also flexible to accommodate customers who at the initial stage will require amounts greater than 75million upon our appraisal of the customer requests. As a bank, we are looking at servicing the over 100 Vodacom territory distributors through this service and they can be able to make their purchase through any BANK OF AFRICA - TANZANIA branch directly to Vodacom’s account at BOA - TANZANIA. We believe this will increase efficiency and allow them to have access to their stock at a much faster pace.
Agents requiring loans will have to contact BANK OF AFRICA - TANZANIA branches in Tanzania. In Dar es Salaam, the bank has 11 branches, and other branches are located in Arusha, Morogoro, Mtibwa, Kahama, Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, Tunduma, Mtwara and Mwanza.
