STANDARD CHARTERED BANK'S EXIT FROM RETAIL BUSINESS AND THE FUTURE

Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Herman Kasekende responds to questions by The Citizen’s Managing Editor, Mpoki Thomson in Dar es Salaam recently.

• Four months after his appointment as Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Herman Kasekende had a one on one with The Citizen’s Managing Editor, Mpoki Thomson to discuss the lender’s priorities in Tanzania’s financial market, operational landscape, the role it plays in financing key strategic projects, as well as new developments in the sector. Excerpts;

As the new CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania, what are your top priorities, and how will they impact Tanzania’s financial sector?

As a global bank, strategic priority number one is to leverage our network in Tanzania. With our strengths being in Africa, Middle East and Asia, while also being listed in the UK and Hong Kong, what we do very well is to deliver that network to our clients, mainly the corporate banking clients.

The next strategic priority is about digitizing our operations. We want to make sure that we invest a lot more in digital and get all of our operations and transactions to online channels. Right now, close to about 95 percent to 96 percent of our transactions are actually done digitally.

Another strategic area is about sustainability and climate change. As an institution we’ve taken steps to accelerate our operations to net zero.

I’m happy to note that our key regulator – Bank of Tanzania (BoT), is actually committed and aligned with the ambitions for sustainability.

We’re also working with the Ministry of Finance to come up with a sustainable finance framework which will enable the country to take advantage of some better priced financing which is available in the debt and capital markets.

Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania is set to exit consumer, private and business banking in Tanzania. What does this mean for your clients and your operations in the country?

We are committed and we believe in the prospects for Tanzania in terms of growth. When you look at East Africa, one of the best performing markets is actually Tanzania in fundamental areas: GDP growth, inflation, stability of exchange rates and interest rates.

However, what we did was to rebalance our portfolio by assessing our priority areas and where we can make the most impact. We will only do business where we believe there is scale and scope. I have no doubt that there are enough banks active to support the retail business in Tanzania.

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