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New Building Society (NBS) chief executive officer John Biziwick said on Friday his institution will in two months time become a full commercial bank and start offering clients services like traveller’s cheques and business loans, among others.
Speaking during the opening of NBS Liwonde Agency in Machinga, Biziwick said NBS is currently limited in the services it can offer because it is a building society and not a commercial bank.
“Within two months from now we are becoming a commercial bank and we will be offering all products of a commercial bank,” he said in an interview later.
As a building society, NBS currently only offers savings accounts, fixed deposit accounts, tax-free deposit accounts, investment accounts, corporate accounts, short-term loans and mortgages.
On the opening of Liwonde Agency which is under NBS Zomba Branch, Biziwick said the response during the two months of the agency’s operations has been encouraging and 147 new accounts have been opened as of Friday.
“We are getting very good business and once tobacco auction floors open [on March 22], there will be more business,” he said in an apparent reference to the tobacco farmers based at Ntaja and surrounding areas which are within the agency’s catchment area.
Before the coming of NBS, most Liwonde residents and businesses used to travel to Balaka, about 40 kilometres North and Zomba, 60 kilometres southwards for banking services, according to Liwonde Town Assembly chief executive Ali Phiri who was the guest of honour.
“And when we had K5,000 to deposit, for example, we used to get transport from the same amount and at the end of the day what we ended up depositing was not K5,000 but less. It was the same when we went for withdrawals in Zomba or Balaka,” said Phiri, asking NBS to provide house loans to residents.
Biziwick said NBS responded to Liwonde Town Assembly’s request to provide banking services in the twonship which has a population of 25,000 from 2,000 in 1971 and several businesses and government departments.
“While our competitors think that you can only do business with corporate customers, we at NBS believe that money is not with companies but the people who are farming, doing business and working,” he said.
Police officer Sikanaze Mkureche, one of the customers invited to the opening ceremony, said the Liwonde NBS agency is saving people’s time and money spent on transport.
Later in the afternoon, NBS treated the clients and Liwonde Township councillors to a cocktail reception at.Hippo View Lodge.
NBS, which has branches in Karonga, Mzuzu, Kasungu, Lilongwe, Mangochi, Zomba, Blantyre and Mulanje, failed to turn into a commercial bank last year as earlier announced by Nico Holdings Limited managing director Felix Mlusu whose group has a 74 percent stake in NBS.
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