She was speaking after visiting the PBZ
Bank pavilion at the Ngongo’s Nanenane Exhibition Grounds in this
southern Tanzania’s Indian Ocean-side municipality. Ms Hassan noted that
the bank’s move to open a new branch in Mtwara Region strategically
aimed at boosting business and offer services to residents in all
Southern Tanzania regions.
“I would like to commend you for opening
branches in Tanzania Mainland, including the one you plan to open in
Mtwara recently,” she said.
Earlier, PBZ Bank Marketing Manager, Mr
Mohamed Nuh, said the bank was looking forward to opening a new branch
in Mtwara by the end of this month. He said so far, PBZ has a total of
11 branches across the country and that Mtwara Branch will increase the
tally to 12 branches. “
We have a total of 11 branches on both
Zanzibar and Tanzania Mainland. We are focusing at opening more branches
in various regions on Tanzania Mainland in the near future,” he said.
According to Mr Nuh, PBZ Bank’s management is considering opening
another branch in Dodoma after that of Mtwara and later Arusha and
Mwanza regions respectively.
“Our focus now is on opening a new branch in Mtwara. We will then go to Dodoma, Arusha and later Mwanza.
All these are still plans but we hope
that they will be implemented with time,” he said. Mr Nuh said that the
bank aims at establishing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) banking in
Mtwara purposely to support entrepreneurs in the region.
He said PBZ is doing everything in its
capacity to support the government initiatives in building up greater
financial inclusion. “We are looking forward to support SMEs in the
southern regions. PBZ is supporting the government in building financial
inclusion,” he reiterated.
The People’s Bank of Zanzibar Limited
was established on June 30, 1966, in accordance with the Zanzibar
Companies Decree (Cap 153). It is wholly owned by the government of
Zanzibar.
It is one of the oldest commercial banks
in Tanzania. It is also the only bank in Tanzania with its head office
in Zanzibar. It dominates the Zanzibar market with about 50 per cent of
the market share.
