30 Mar 2014

Banks have been urged to exercise vigilance against sophisticated international criminal syndicates and cyber criminals which are targeting them.

Speaking at the official opening of the Airport Junction Branch of the Barclays Bank in Gaborone, the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo said banks had increasingly become a target.

He said becoming vigilant against such crime, banks would be protecting the integrity and reputation of, not only their brands but the entire banking sector of Botswana.

Minister Matambo said for the banking environment to continue to enjoy the international respect it did, all were required to be vigilant and as a bank, Barclays was in a business which operated on the basis of trust.

He said the challenge that the bank faced was how to grow its business and take risks, without compromising the trust that it had built over the years, and said as the experience of large financial institutions in Europe and the United States had shown, it took a few rogue elements to compromise an entire industry.

The minister said as the government continued the drive to attract foreign direct investment into the country, one of the fundamental factors that potential investors would always consider before committing their resources in the country, was the reliability of the banking system.

He said with increased diamond trading activities, Gaborone was gradually turning into a destination for international diamond dealers and as a new downstream industries open, the role of the banking sector was more critical than ever to support development of Botswana’s diamond industry.

Mr Matambo said commercial banks could not continue to do business as usual . They were required to offer first class service and as a country it was judged on, among others, the efficiency of its banking services.

He said whilst the new requirements of the market continued to be investment in technological innovations, some areas of technology could not replace human relationships and implored banks to do more to improve how they interacted with their customers.

The minister said Barclays Bank started operating in Botswana in 1950 with a single agency in Lobatse and now they had 116 ATMs and 43 outlets country wide with staff compliments of 1 200.

For her part the bank managing director, Ms Reinette Van Der Merwe, said the Airport Junction branch was a three in one and was the second of its kind after the Game City branch which opened a year ago.

She said inside the model bank, there were three branches, being the Standard branch catering for the mass market, the Prestige section catering for the emerging affluent and the premier suite which catered for the affluent segment. Ends