adminIn a commentary, Kingdom Financial Holdings said the initiatives were bringing sophisticated banking methods to the unbanked and under-banked.
“There are various new and innovative banking products tailor-made for various levels of society. Such innovative banking products include Kingdom cellcard, CABS textcash while telecommunication companies have also been innovative in the movement of cash with products such as NetOne wallet and Econet Ecocash,” said the financial institution.
An economic commentator, Ms Chipo Warikandwa, said bank deposits would continue to increase as the transacting public embraced new technology.
“The use of plastic money and other initiatives such as the electronic transfer of money unveiled by players in the telecommunications sector is one of the initiatives on the market that has seen banking deposits increasing,” she said.
She said it was also important for banks to reduce lending interest rates that presently range between 15 percent and 40 percent and provide medium to long term lending to attract investors.
Ms Warikandwa said following the economic turmoil that dogged Zimbabwe in the last decade, confidence with the local banking sector was still low.
She said a lot still needed to be done to regain the lost confidence in the banking industry.
The Bankers Association of Zimbabwe estimates that about $3 billion is circulating in the informal sector and never finding its way into the banking system.
Online Reporter