Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) has commended National Bank of Malawi for engaging farmers from rural areas on financial inclusion, saying this is very good because many farmers have been going through challenges in accessing finance.

Speaking on Friday when the bank engaged farmers, Agri-Business Coordinator at Farmers Union of Malawi Rudolph Binga said the interaction between the farmers and the bank is very crucial.

“So for National Bank to invite the farmers to interact with them I think it’s really good. It has been also such type of understanding from the farmers’ side that banks are for elite and not for them. So we have seen National Bank breaking that understanding by interacting with the farmers,” said Binga.

One of the farmers who attended the meeting, Tamiton Nyerere Zaunda who is Secretary for Dowa Farmers Union, said the meeting was very important because as farmers they have interacted with the bank on a practical basis, therefore he hopes and believe that if they keep doing so Malawi will be developed in few years to come.

Zaunda in red jacket and Nyirenda

“As farmers we are really satisfied with response we got from the people who work here at National Bank because there were some things we did not understand them at first but now the bank has given us the answers on all the issues. Like at first before attending the meeting we thought the banks are only for elite and not for people in the villages, but now we have realised that we got it all wrong. We were even scared to come here and apply for a loan because we heard that the interests here are too much but from what we have heard today from the people who work here, the interests are very fair and the fear we had is gone now,” said Zaunda.

George Nyirenda who is National Bank Service Centre Manager, Capital City said as a Bank they thought it wise to engage rural farmers on issues of Finance and to give them room to ask everything in regards to the issues of Financial Inclusion.

“As a bank we sat down and realised that as we stand now many people know very little about the bank especially in the remote areas, sometimes they think that maybe the bank is for people in town or certain status of people which is not supposed to be the case. So management decided to pick representation of very rural areas to come and interact with us,” said Nyirenda.

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