By ADRIAN MWANZA
BANKS should learn to be innovative because they risk being replaced by schemes like village banking and even mobile money services, former Economics Association of Zambia President Dr Lubinda Haabazoka has said.
Dr Haabazoka said that most banks needed to come up with strategies that would help them remain afloat because dynamics were slowly changing in the country as most people were adopting the village banking concept.
Recently, Finance and National Planning Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane indicated that banks and other financial institutions were making it difficult for small businesses to access funds with high interest rates thereby not being supportive to industries.
But Dr Haabazoka said that this would force Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) to venture in village programmes that were very flexible and user friendly.
“My take is that banks needed to be very innovative because they will lose business due to the high interest rates that they have put,” he said.
He said most SME’s were being discouraged to go to banks and that this would have a toll on them in the long run.
Dr Haabazoka said the government needed to move in and ensure that policies were put in place to monitor banks for the sake of stabilising the economy.
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