Government salutes Zanaco, COMESA
By Times Reporter
THE Government has praised Zanaco and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) for their continued corporate social responsibility strategy aimed at raising financial literacy levels in Zambia.
Speaking when he officially opened a one-day Zanaco Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) financial literacy and business planning training workshop at Ndola’s Savoy Hotel yesterday, Copperbelt Permanent Secretary Villie Lombanya said the bank’s strategy was progressive as it would ensure direct communication between the SMEs and the bank.
Mr Lombanya said the move had created a defined interface between Zanaco and its clients, which he said would lead to a quick and immediate solution to the needs of customers.
Zanaco has an SME client portfolio of 20,000 being serviced by an SMEs team and the branch network spread throughout the country.
He commended the bank for its recently-formed business banking department aimed at effectively promoting closer relationship and efficiently provide solutions to the needs of the SMEs.
Mr Lombanya was hopeful the training, the fourth of its kind, would give business owners and managers in Ndola, and the Copperbelt Province in general, a headstart in growing their businesses.
Apart from the SMEs, Zanaco was targeting children in more than 100 schools adopted through the bank’s branch network and were being taught financial literacy basics.
The one-day workshop, made possible by Zanaco in partnership with the COMESA SME toolkit project, saw participants taken through major areas of business management ranging from accounting and finance, human resource management, marketing and sales, business planning and the Zanaco requirements for credit facilities and account opening.
And speaking in an interview, Zanaco head of business banking, Chibamba Lopa said the bank would ensure the project was carried throughout the country.
He said the bank’s aim was to ensure the growth of SMEs in the country.
