In a bid to financially include the unbanked population, Centenary Bank has added a new service on its agent banking platform that enables both its customers and bank non-customers to withdraw money at no charge.
Financial institutions have in recent years embarked on the journey to financially include more Ugandans by continuously exploring new avenues through which to bring financial services closer to communities and offer better banking experiences to the growing number of customers.
According to Beatrice Lugalambi, Centenary Bank’s General Manager Corporate Communication and Marketing, the bank has proactively taken steps geared towards promoting access to financial services not only for its customers but Ugandans at large.
He noted that the introduction of the CenteSwift service will enable users to send and receive money through the bank’s CenteAgent banking platform.
“The CenteSwift service allows individuals to send money across the country at a minimal cost, while the recipients, on the other hand, withdraws the money sent to them at no charge, regardless of whether one holds an account with the bank or not,” Lugalambi said.
“All the transactions of sending and withdrawing can be initiated and completed at any of our over 4,000 CenteAgents country-wide, who were recruited to enable us to reach the unbanked population.”
The Centenary Bank’s General Manager in charge of corporate communication and marketing explained that their customer base has through the years grown to 1.8 million accounts.
“We believe that deploying technology-driven services that offer convenience and are also affordable is key in achieving our mission of financially including more people, especially those in the rural areas,” Lugalambi added.
According to Bank of Uganda, as of September 2019, Uganda had 26 licenced commercial banks which are meant to serve a population of 44 million Ugandans.
However, the commercial banks serve only up to 11.3 million people while Credit Institutions and Microfinance Deposit-Taking Institutions serve 608,000 and 1.2 million people respectively.
This means, there is still a need to bridge the financial inclusion gap.
