The ongoing Financial Literacy Week, first of its kind in the country, which is running under the theme; Promoting Financial literacy on personal and house hold perspective will run up to 13th December from Monday the 9th.
The Reserve Bank’s Deputy Governor Dr. Grant Kabango observed that the various activities that have been planned for the week will add value on existing efforts meant to increase the bankable population. The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) has described the financial literacy week currently underway in the country as an opportunity to boost the number of people having access to stable banking service.
“We hope this will enable the general public made aware of how financial institutions works and this will go a long way in building the citizens making informed decisions.” Dr Kabango observed.
Kabango believes that this week will also influence people to develop interest in as far as the understanding of financial issues is concerned in areas such as insurance, investments in the Malawi Stock Exchange, money markets and many more.
Speaking in an interview, deputy minister of finance, Dr. Cornelius Mwalwanda said government’s role in financial literacy will be in creating conducive environment rather than being involved in actual infrastructural issues. Mwalwanda has also noted that there is a continued lack of a saving culture especially in rural areas. Malawi’s population has a bankable population of 19 percent and efforts are being made to expand it to 40 percent.
Recent developments in mobile money banking however are projected to push the financial inclusion of those currently considered as un-banked. Earlier this year, the country’s two mobile network operators, Airtel Malawi and TNM introduced mobile money products Airtel Money and TNM Mpamba respectively. Airtel Money announced last week that the service had already recorded 500,000 subscribers and had processed U$D 12,000,000 in mobile money transactions.