On Wednesday the 30^th of March 2022, National Bank of Malawi plc, led by its Digital & Financial Services Department (DFS), organized a dinner in Blantyre at Protea Hotel Ryalls to provide a platform to discuss challenges in digital inclusion.

According to the NBM plc Head of Digital Banking Services William Kaunda, the institution will continue to go an extra mile in ensuring accessibility of its digital services to all its customers by taking time to address and clarify some of the misconceptions concerning digital banking solutions mostly caused by financial illiteracy.

“We have created a platform for our stakeholders to voice out their concerns and the reason for doing this is to ensure that we address all the challenges they encounter in accessing our services. We have heard that network problem has been rampart the past few months, we want to assure Malawians that National Bank of Malawi will continue working on this to ensure that we provide quality services to our customers,” said Kaunda.

During the dinner, the media raised several questions including network problems in most of NBM’s ATM machines at the end of the month. In response, NBM disclosed that this could be because most people withdraw money around this time that makes money to run out of the machines as the ATM machines can only accommodate certain amount of money.

The guests also raised questions regarding cards being swallowed and sometimes the machines refusing the cards when the customers want to access money from the machine. Addressing the issue, NBM clarified that the ATM machines are designed in a way that they check authenticity of the cards used before a customer can access the money and sometimes, these machines reject or holds the cards when they suspect there is something wrong with the cards.

Among the crucial stakeholders invited included representatives of the ICT Association of Malawi (ICTAM) and the media. In his remarks, ICTAM President Bram Fudzulani commended the bank for the initiative to address the challenges encountered in accessing the institution’s services.

Bram Fudzulani, ICTAM President

 “The initiative to bring together different stakeholders to talk about the digital and financial services is an estimable initiative by National Bank of Malawi. Financial institutions have a role to play in enhancing digital inclusion initiatives and we have witnessed NBM Plc taking time to bring more clarity in this area that is marred with negative stories,” said Fudzulani.

Fudzulani also discussed that the role of ICTAM in the digital & financial inclusion is to protect the consumers in the market by engaging all the key players in this sector. He also said a considerable percentage of Malawians are still illiterate and at the same time they don’t understand their rights. He said ICTAM comes in to pinpoints their concerns and channel them to the right stakeholders. He also said ICTAM is advocating for mass digital literacy in coordination with the government and other stakeholder.