The tiny mining town of Sowa will once again get access to banking services, thanks to the mobile facility provided by the First National Bank Botswana (FNBB).
Over the years, the residents of Sowa Town had to reel through the agony of travelling to Nata village for banking services. The revelation was made by Sowa Town Mayor, George Maphane during a full council meeting last week.
“As you may remember, presentations were made to several banks soliciting for banking facility to assist the Sowa community after Barclays bank relocated to Nata village. I am happy to inform this honourable house that following these presentations, First National Bank has decided to provide banking services to Sowa town through mobile branch for a week in a month,” he told the full council meeting.
Maphane said the operation was anticipated to start in August 2017. He said although this was not the type of service they wanted, the service will go a long way in assisting the residents for their banking needs. He further said this service will hopefully be expanded and that could only happen if the bank gets profits locally.
“I want to urge this honourable house to support the bank through opening of accounts and use of their products. We have suffered due to lack of a banking facility for a long time and we want FNB to stay” he said.
The FNBB mobile unit, which was first unveiled in South Africa last year, is a transformed shipping container that is equipped with state-of-the-art banking infrastructure such as an ATM, ADT (automated deposit terminal) and teller services. The mobile unit was launched following calls by financial services captains to push commercial banks to extend banking services to unbanked rural communities.
