Stanbic Bank Uganda courts MPs in push for women’s financial inclusion
KAMPALA – Stanbic Bank Uganda has sought the support of the Members of Parliament as it popularises in the country its women’s financial empowerment programme dubbed, Stanbic for Her, aimed at providing cheaper loans to women-run businesses.
The Stanbic Bank Uganda programme aims at empowering women through financial support and delivering services through women’s social development groups and Saccos.
In an engagement with the Deputy Speaker for Parliament Thomas Tayebwa, the Chief Executive Officer for Stanbic Bank Anne Juuko, said the programme targets women so that they are able to enhance their productivity, through financial empowerment.
She said it would also require Members of Parliament to mobilise the women in their constituencies so that they can benefit from the programme established to uplift the status of women-founded enterprises.
“We note that women continue to be excluded in the financial sector and by removing the barriers such as the requirement of collateral, land title, we are inviting women to be part of the financial sector giving them a chance to so do something for themselves and their families,” she said.
She added that women lack most of the basic requirements to acquire credit from financial institutions, yet many also do not have the minimum financial literacy to enable them to sustain their smallholder businesses.
She said her bank is facilitating women through Saccos and other productive groups to get loans at low interest rate of at least 10 percent, urging the MPs to play a vital part in this initiative.
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa implored the MPs through the Parliamentary Forum on East Africa to embrace the campaign to help their communities prosper by helping the women. He also cautioned them against using the project to enhance their personal business fortunes at the cost of the targeted women.
“Use the opportunity very well, use your money to make more money such that when you leave parliament you don’t become street beggars,” Tayebwa said.
According to research findings released in 2019 by Uganda Bureau of Statistics [UBOS], only 6 percent of women in the country use bank services and products in their businesses and financial transactions.
The Stanbic for Her would serve as a game-changing facility, especially for women businesses given the growing number of business start-ups and formation of women-led business groups seeking financial inclusion.
The initiative can be run using any Agent Banking outlets across the countryside, but can also run in flex-pay giving access to all clients even without a smartphone, bank officials say.
https://thecooperator.news/stanbic-bank-launches-shs-50-billion-funds-for-saccos-in-northern-uganda/
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