CRDB, IFC agree on six cooperation areas
CRDB Bank Plc and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) have agreed on six specific areas of cooperation to foster sustainable financial inclusion in the country and beyond.
This is the message that senior executives of the two institutions agreed on during their meeting in Washington on the side-lines of the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit.
CRDB Group CEO Mr Abdulmajid Nsekela said the meeting in Washington sought to bring top leaders of the two institutions together to deliberate on areas of collaboration and support.
“We, therefore, agreed to cooperate in issues pertaining to the financing of undertakings for women and youth.
“In huge infrastructure financing in Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are supporting future cross-border businesses, especially when CRDB will be embarking on its expansion strategy to East and Southern Africa,” Mr Nsekela said in a statement yesterday.
During the meeting, CRDB’s delegation was led by its Chairman, Dr Ally Laay, Vice Chairperson, and Prof Neema Mori while IFC was represented by its director and global Head of Financial Institutions Group, Mr Tomasz Telma.
The two institutions, also, agreed to cooperate on funding support for environmental projects, capacity building, and in agribusiness.
“IFC has played a key role in the success of CRDB during the past eight years and in the successful implementation of our five-year strategy which expires this year,” said Mr Nsekela.
IFC is a long-term and strategic partner for CRDB and has played a key role in supporting the bank’s strategy since 2014.
Mr Telma said since IFC and CRDB have been working together for several years, he was optimistic that the discussions would open new opportunities for further cooperation between the two institutions.
He detailed IFC’s experience in financing projects in Tanzania and noted that the country has great potential.
In his presentation during the meeting, Mr Nsekela showed that the bank has a balance sheet of 10.9tri/- and a capital of 1.4tri/- and equally, boasts of expanded alternative delivery channels and investments to provide financial services to all customers and support the economic transformation of its markets.
The lender has over 25,000 CRDB Wakala, SimBanking as well as depository and forex ATMs among other alternative banking platforms, hence, 93 per cent of CRDB’s transactions were being completed outside the branch.
As a result, CRDB’s net profit jumped to 268bn/- last year from merely 36bn/- in 2017 while the cumulative net profit for the first nine months of the current calendar year stood at 257bn/-.
The lender held 7.672tri/- in customers’ deposits as of the third quarter of this year, up from 4.326tri/- that was registered in 2017.
Similarly, CRDB, one of the largest in the country, had loaned 6.24tri/- as of September up from 2.89tri/- in 2017.
Mr Nsekela exuded confidence that the next five years will witness another period of growth across all the key performance parameters for the lender. The lender next year embarks on a new five-year.
