Zimbabwe: Empower Bank Adequately Financed
On July 5 2018, President Emmerson Mnangagwa officially launched the Empower Bank at a ceremony in Harare. The bank was touted as the answer to the challenges that youths face in accessing funding for their projects. This week, Zimbabwe Independent's Nkululeko Sibanda (NS) spoke to board chairperson Raymond Njanike (RN) to review the bank's journey in its seven months of existence. Below are the excerpts:
NS: Let's start off by looking at what Empower Bank is.
RN: Empower Bank is a financial institution that was created and launched to cater for the youths of Zimbabwe. You will realise that in our planning, we agreed that we would dedicate 70% of the loans at Empower Bank to the youths while the other 30% is set aside for borrowing to any other business.
As you are aware, we are a deposit-taking micro-finance institution and we are dealing with the youth. They do not have much to deposit. So we have to then deal with the other segment, the 30%, that can deposit money into the bank. These are the savings that we will then use to finance the youth. That is the model in brief.
NS: Seven months into this business, how has the journey been for Empower Bank? What have you been up to?
RN: We have built a strong foundation for the bank in those seven months. It's a process that has taken time but we are sure that we have built a strong foundation for the house to stand on. We recently opened this bank. We have not been in operation for a long time.
The president launched the bank on the 5th of July 2018. From then on, we were busy at work putting systems into place and perfecting the systems so that we run smoothly when we finally open for business.
It has not been an easy thing to do. But we are confident that, going forward, everything should be flowing smoothly. We also need to work on the bank's penetration strategy so that we are able to reach out to all the youths in all the corners of Zimbabwe.
NS: President Mnangagwa launched the bank in July last year. He spoke, at the time, of his Vision 2030 mantra. How does your bank fit into that vision?
RN: As we have highlighted before, the whole essence is about empowerment of the youth and our ability to finance their income-generating projects. These income generation projects are what we believe to be the engine for the country's economic growth. The youth are very innovative and energetic. The challenge is that they are hamstrung when it comes to accessing funding for their dream projects.
That is where we come in, to finance their projects and enable them to play a role in the economic revival programme that government is pushing. Read more on All Africa.