Listed National Bank of Malawi (NBM) plc has won an international award for innovative solutions and social impact in Micro-, Small and Medium Enterprise finance.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), Bank for the European Union, gave out the award to NBM Head of Retail Banking Division Oswin Kasunda at the 3^rd EIB Southern Africa SME &Microfinance Academy held in South Africa last week.

EIB said in a statement that NBM plc won the award for organizing regional customer events that include training on Business Planning, Financial Management and taxes in cooperation with partners.

Reacting to the award, Kasunda said in an interview yesterday that the award is very important to the bank as it is recognition of the strides that the bank has made towards embracing SMEs in the country.

“We are promoting financial inclusion and for us to do that we need to come up with initiatives that embrace and attract both the banked and non-banked especially  the SMEs. The bank has a programme that promotes growth of the SME sector through the provision  of business and financial management skills and knowledge.. We are happy that our efforts are being recognized,” said Kasunda.

He said NBM believes that when the SME sector grows, other non-banking sectors will also be attracted therefore reaching out to more people for financial inclusion.

In the past year, 2017, NBM has been holding customer interaction meetings with its customers especially SMEs where it has also been offering training to them in various fields namely business plans, book and record keeping and how to differentiate between business and personal transactions among many different business subjects.

The bank held customer interactions in  Zomba, Nchalo, Mulanje,Lilongwe, Kasungu, Ntchisi and Rumphi.