dfcu Bank, in partnership with NTV Uganda and Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) have today launched a nationwide reward campaign targeted at driving a savings and investment culture in Uganda.
The Shs100 million reward campaign, which will run – in part as a TV show competition dubbed ‘Battle for Cash’, was launched at the Kampala Serena Hotel, with the media fraternity having the first hands-on experience.
The dfcu Bank Executive Director and Chief of Business William Sekabembe, said two special categories of women and youth have been included. Clubs with 100% composition of these special groups will apply to enter the competition and into a special category for Women Clubs and Youth increasing their chances of winning.
“We are putting a lot of emphasis on these two categories because we believe they play a major role in the development of communities and Uganda as a whole,” he added.
The ‘Battle for Cash,’ challenge will provide a free platform to Investment Clubs to showcase their success stories over a period of six (6) months.
The best investment club will take the Shs100m prize, while one delegate from each of the 20 selected clubs that will enter the competition will be sponsored to attend a study tour in Nairobi to share experiences, network, and widen their knowledge and contacts. The top seven (7) clubs will also receive free advisory services for a period of one (1) year.
As part of several efforts to promote a savings culture in Uganda, dfcu Bank introduced the Investment Clubs program in 2007 providing a conducive platform to foster group savings. The dfcu Bank program has since grown with over 10,000 Investment Clubs that cut across all segments including students, the professionals, women, youths holding a savings turnover of over UGX 400 billion. Also, clubs that are able to present innovative investment ideas and demonstrate the ability to consistently pool savings towards the realization of their objective for a minimum period of six months will be eligible to enter the competition. They will have the opportunity to showcase their ideas and investment projects on NTV Uganda.
Compared to the countries in the region, Uganda has the lowest savings to GDP ratio, at 13.48 per cent of GDP, with majority of the population ‘un-banked’.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, only 12% of the population have bank accounts while research shows that Ugandans save less than 5% of their monthly earnings as compared to other East African countries (Kenya 23%; Tanzania 13% Rwanda 18%).
The low savings rates are largely a result of traditional banking remaining out of reach for most due to factors like; inadequate financial services; financial illiteracy; physical distance from banking institutions and high minimum deposit and balance requirements, limiting access to banking services.
But banks have taken huge strides in addressing these shortcomings by recognizing the potential and are introducing resourceful methods of bringing them back into the formal economy by introducing several innovative products and services.
