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Enacy Mapakame

Steward Bank says it would continue to leverage on its digital platforms in enhancing financial inclusion to meet the funding needs of informal traders and small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

This comes after the bank disbursed nearly 500 000 loans to informal traders during the financial year 2021, through the bank’s Kashagi Nano loans platform.

The year under review was characterised by economic volatility due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which lowered business activity resulting in working capital constraints. The informal traders were among the hardest hit.

“The bank sought to address this problem by leveraging on digital loans that could be availed to informal traders and SME’s needing financial assistance in terms of loans,” said chief executive officer Courage Mashavave.

“Through the Kashagi Nano loans platform, the bank managed to dispense digital loans via mobile. The platform enabled the marginalised population to access cheap loans instantly within a minute upon application.

“More than 400 000 Kashagi loans were dispensed to individuals across the country with 25 percent of the loans being dispensed to women,” he said.

The bank said more than 6 900 women had access to Kwenga point of sale (POS) machines while 2 436 women had access to the traditional POS machines bringing the total to 9 336 women with access to POS machines for the financial year in review.

The values transacted through the POS machines were more than $900 million. Mr Mashavave said the business will continue to address financial inclusion in the country while making use of the growing digitalisation initiatives being implemented in the financial services sector and across the economy.

“Much effort will be channelled towards improving the customer experience on the bank’s digital platforms and touch-points.

“The business will leverage artificial intelligence to pre-empt and address customer needs as well as address inefficiencies related to human intervention and error. The customer will be viewed from a 360-degree focus to better satisfy their underlying banking needs,” he said.

During the year under review, Steward Bank embarked on an initiative to drive customers from its branches and to start transacting on its digital platforms under its ‘Go Digital’ campaign.

Value-added services around the bank’s products were implemented such as the Visa Direct and Visa Mobile Application that totally eliminated the need for Visa Card related customer enquiries requiring human interventions.

Mr Mashavave added the bank looks to add more of its branch related services on to its mobile platforms as it pursues its aspirations of becoming a fully-fledged digital bank, which is also in line with the new normal.

Meanwhile, the bank’s inflation adjusted, net operating income decreased by 34 percent when compared against the prior year.

But the digital revenue line increased to $980 million from $237 million in the previous year on the back of its digital innovations that ranged from USD banking, Visa Card integrations and POS ingenuities.