By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
NATSAVE Bank currently has over K800 million on its loan book despite the current challenging business environment, as it wins two awards due to enhanced product innovation.
The loan book is split in into loans to corporates, salary employees, Small and Medium Enterprises as well as loans to marketeers, says NATSAVE acting Managing Director, Keith Hamusute.
Mr Hamusute said yesterday in Lusaka at a press briefing that the loan portfolio was quite a diversified as the Bank was ensuring that it lends households especially with the effects of Covid-19.
“We see it as our mandate to help out those sectors that have been affected by the pandemic,” he said.
Mr Hamusute also said NATSAVE has won the 2020 Bank of Zambia (BoZ) Governor’s award for the product innovation and the most transformed non-bank financial institution from the Economics Association of Zambia.
Under the BoZ award, he said, the award was given following the product deployment called Karibu Product targeting refugees in Zambia.
“In 2019, the Bank took a survey to identify the financially excluded communities. The refugee community was identified as un-served hence the development of the Karibu business and Karibu personal accounts,” Mr Hamusute said.
He said the Bank observed that many of these refugees were engaged in business and other income generating activities including farming as they had limitations to get into formal employment.
For the EAZ award, Mr Hamusute said, the bank had been undergoing a serious transformations while launching new products.
Meanwhile, Mr Hamusute said NATSAVE had accessed financing under the BoZ Targeted Medium Refinancing Facility to the tune of K500 million.
This was for on lending and this has made a huge impact on house. The downstream effect is massive.
He said the K500 had been pumped into the economy, thereby meeting various needs of households and industries.
On the revision of the facility terms and conditions by the BoZ, Mr Hamusute said: “We are aware of that announcement and yesterday [Monday] they did send us the revised terms.
“Now the BoZ is keen to ensure that that particular concession in pricing is passed on to the beneficiar-ies and as a Bank we intend to do that,” he said.
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