Lusaka 14th September : Lusaka, September 14 : Zambian government has announced that it is working to increase the amount of financial inclusion in order to allow those in remote areas to take advantage of the expanding financial sector.Trevor Kaunda, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and National Planning in charge of Monitoring and Evaluation, told reporters on Tuesday that the goal was to boost the financial participation in rural areas by 50 to 75 percent, Xinhua news agency reported.
In remarks made during an event to examine the usage of general guidelines for the of the of financial services arranged by the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) the central bank of the country The official stated that the plan was aimed at encouraging financial inclusion by facilitating the facilities of government in rural areas that financial service companies could draw upon in offering financial services.
The government, he said, was also working to increase the proportion of districts with at the very least one access point to financial services from 82 per cent to 100 percent at the end of the year.
Denny Kalyalya, the BoZ governor, expressed concern about the financial participation in rural areas has remained to be low with 32 out of the district’s 116 that are without access to financial services.
Although acknowledging that financial inclusion increased to 69.4 percent in 2020, up from 59.3 percent in 2015 The central bank’s chief declared that the rate of financial inclusion in rural areas has remained to be low , at 56.9 percent.
The chief of the central bank said the bank, in collaboration with the Ministry responsible for national and financial planning has launched the initiative to aid in the acceleration of rural financial inclusion by encouraging the use of existing infrastructure in rural areas to facilitate the delivery of financial services.
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