The Ugandan PostBank has introduced a mobile-van based banking system to ease access to financial services in rural areas.
“This system will reduce the distance customers have been travelling to access our services,” Elidad Kansiime, the chairman board of directors, said at the inauguration of the bank’s Ntungamo branch.
He said system had been operating in the remote areas of Karamoja, but would be extended to other parts of Uganda to encourage saving and fight financial exclusion.
Kansiime said the bank focused on developing a saving culture to improve household incomes of rural people.
“This is the reason we have special products that meet the needs of the low-to-middle income people who wish to save and increase their assets base and productivity to enhance their savings.
“To us, you are not mere numbers, but rather individual clients with personal hopes, wishes and aspirations,” he said.
He disclosed that the bank was in talks with the Government to increase its capitalisation to enable them extend more loans to the rural masses.
While commissioning the branch, the First Lady and Ruhaama county MP, Janet Museveni, castigated commercial banks for being profit-oriented instead of helping the masses to come out of poverty.
She urged the people of Ntungamo to save and invest to prosper.