ZANZIBAR: THE Bank of Tanzania (BoT) said yesterday that there is positive response from microfinance service providers Tier II to register their businesses, a move that helps to reduce complaints and misunderstanding between borrowers and service providers.
BoT’s Senior Principle Banking Examiner Deogratius Mnyamani said here that to date 1,656 non deposit taking microfinance service Providers have already been registered in the country.
“There is increased number of applicants seeking to register and acquire licences as microfinance service providers in the country,” he said.
He said, currently the central bank is working on about 2,274 institutional applicants seeking for operational licences to provide microfinance services.
“The number of applications seeking to register microfinance businesses is huge,” He said.
Additionally, he said the Bank receives between 15 and 18 applications every week from microfinance service providers seeking to register their businesses.
To cater for the rising demand for microfinance businesses formalisation, Mr Mnamani said BoT wants to digitise the registration process of microfinance service providers saying the move will ultimately boost the process.
He said BoT conducts inspection of the microfinance service providers seeking registration before granting them licences.
He noted that about 147 microfi- nance service providers Tier II have been inspected this year, targeting to inspect over 200 institutions by June this year.
He said until December last year, a total of 653 microfinance service providers have submitted their quarterly reports on the number of loans provided and how borrowers are servicing their debts.
He added that BoT has granted licences to 884 Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (Saccos) and is working on 1,215 other applications.
The central bank has issued about 48,826 licences to Community Microfinance Groups and is working on 49, 910 applications.
According to Section 16, sub section 4 of Microfinance Act, conducting microfinance business without licence is liable to serve two years in jail and not more than five years or pay 10m/- fine.