NBS Bank opens Neno Agency - 07/09/2009

Neno, declared district in 2004, lags behind in development. It is a district engulfed in many problems among them transport. The road to the district is very poor, bumpy and not yet tarred. It is now different story for the district because NBS Bank officially opened its agency there.

Neno District Commissioner Lawford Palani said the opening of the agency was a milestone for the district because people would no longer travel long distances to Blantyre for banking services. "Banking has been a very big problem for us; we did not have any bank here apart from Malawi Savings which also opened recently but the coming of NBS has taken away the pressure," said Palani.

NBS Bank Chief Executive Officer John Bizwick said the bank's aim was to help government's development agenda by providing banking and financial services to people. "Neno has been in the dark for so long. The opening of the agency will help people establish various businesses," Bizwick said. The CEO then announced that it had opened accounts for top chiefs present at the ceremony and pumped in K 10,000 for each. The chiefs included Traditional Authorities Chekucheku, Symon and Mlauli.

Opening the agency, Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) Deputy Governor Mary Nkosi congratulated NBS Bank for the initiative. "RBM was involved in the pre-approval of the agency and we are happy that it has now opened. As RBM our key role is to promote the growth of financial services in order to help the government empower people," Nkosi said. She appealed to the bank to provide all the bankable solutions and that people should not move out of the bank with unanswered questions. "We would like to assure NBS Bank that as a regulatory authority we will continue to support banking institutions to reach out to more people. The opening of the agency is a good sign of growth and we encourage that banks should penetrate the rural areas," she said.

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