NATIONAL MICROFINANCE BANK LAUNCHES EXECUTIVE NETWORK

NMB Chief Executive Officer, Mr Mark Wiessing

The National Microfinance Bank (NMB) has launched a special Executive Network for large scale and medium enterprises and emerging corporates with an annual turnover of at least 2.5bn/-.

The NMB Chief Executive Officer, Mr Mark Wiessing, said at the launch at the weekend in Dar es Salaam that the network will initially be limited to big commercial cities including Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Mbeya, Moshi and Morogoro. The network will have a minimum number of 10 members per region.

“The main aim of the network is to create and strengthen business relations between the bank and its customers and to foster rewarding relationship between NMB business customers,” he said.

He added, “This will be achieved by providing opportunities for NMB Top business customers to acquire financial, regulatory, business and marketing education in order to become and remain competitive.”

He said SME activities were of paramount importance to both the bank and the economy where in just few years the bank is currently supporting over 60,000 SMEs nationwide, representing 25 per cent of the NMB’s overall business.

Some of these SME’s only use us for current account and payments while others use NMB for internet banking, or trade finance and foreign exchange. And a large proportion is using lending products.

He said NMB is in full support of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) business through the creation of business centres, which are dedicated branches only for SME’s nationwide.

They are currently in Kariakoo, Arusha and Mwanza, soon to come in Sinza, Moshi, Mbeya and Morogoro.

“We also support these MSME by way of our Business Clubs, where we offer basic business training, capacity building, and networking opportunities. We train some 5000 customers per year.

We have 32 clubs covering all regions,” he noted. He said the time has come for even stronger interaction between NMB and its largest SME customers, for an interactive debate on topics like taxation, capital raising, trade finance. “We are therefore creating a new NMB SME Executive Network,” he added.