A locally developed product has won a top award at the global Barclays Citizenship Awards.
At the awards ceremony held in London on Tuesday, the Motshelo Savings Account, a product of Barclays Bank of Botswana, won the Team Achievement Award ÔÇô beating competition from the global banking group’s other franchises in the rest of Africa, Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
The Citizenship Awards are meant to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions that Barclays’ employees across the bank’s worldwide operations make on all aspects of corporate citizenship. These include making a positive impact on the environment, helping individuals and businesses to grow through job creation or coaching; or supporting local communities.
The Motshelo Savings Account is a group savings account launched last September, being the first of its kind in the local banking industry to recognise group savers and cater for the unbanked market. Barclays Bank of Botswana’s Consumer Director, Peo Motshegare, says the account is meant to provide a solution to the risks faced by informal group savers by providing them with a safe, formal and reliable service to keep their savings.
“The introduction of the Motshelo account has played a significant role in improving the way we do business by catering for informal group-savers and unbanked citizens,” she said.
The bank’s Acting Managing Director, Aupa Monyatsi, said this week, “I am extremely proud of this bank and our colleagues and this goes to show how a locally brewed product can prevail above global products.”
Barclays Bank of Botswana was recently awarded the Bank of the Year 2013 Award at the InterContinental Finance Magazine’s 2013 Global Banking Awards.?