Barclays Bank, a member of the Absa group Managing Director Mizinga Melu has hailed the initiative of Kongola loan service that the Bank offers through a partnership with MTN Mobile money saying a number of small businesses have been able to find capital through accessing the service of Kongola.
Melu stated that the Kongola service has been designed in a way that is very convenient to every MTN subscriber requiring no security and collateral and that the loan goes up to K4,000. “So Kongola is quite interesting because if you’ve got your phone you can simply dial *303# and it will ask you how much you need to borrow, and the thing about Kongola is that it doesn’t ask you for security and the turnaround is very quick and you can actually get money just like that’’. Melu said.
She added that through the partnership between Barclays Bank and MTN mobile network provider and JUMO a Fintech from cape town, they have been able to provide about K1.8 million to customers who have access to the MTN mobile money service.
She further stated that it is interesting to note that over 50% of borrowers are women which is a plus in the fight for gender parity in finance. “It goes without saying that poverty alleviation will be difficult if women are not well represented in the financial sector and when I talk about financial sector, am not talking about leaders in financial sectors alone, but am talking about also in terms of our clients and how do we provide economic development in those sectors’’, she said.
The Barclays MD said this during her presentation at the 5th Banking and Finance Conference attended by the Zambian Business Times- ZBT in Lusaka. She commended the Village banking initiative locally known as Chilimba for providing the access to capital investment among the Small Scale Entrepreneurs.
She added that without capital it is very difficult to start business, “the Village banking concept in Zambia is encouraging group saving and there’s a lot of money that is actually within the Village banking system, known as Chilimba, so it great that the central bank has supported this and it is something that promotes women to actually save informally.
