Nedbank pledges more support to key sectors of the economy
One of Zimbabwe’s major financial services player, Nedbank Group, says Zimbabwe remains open for business, hence, through its local unit will continue to support key sectors that drive economic growth.
The group’s managing executive of Africa Regions, Dr Terence Sibiya, during a virtual presentation of the Nedbank Group 2024 financial results, said the bank will continue to focus on what the demands of the economy are in order for Zimbabwe to grow.
“We still think Zimbabwe is open for business and will continue to support those sectors that drive Zimbabwe’s economic growth. We look at our strengths, which include infrastructure finance, project finance, energy finance and lending into sectors that drive economic growth. A key focus for us going forward will also be to support small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and support mid-tier corporates,” he said.
He said the group still thinks Zimbabwe has a massive opportunity in those sectors that drive economic growth and Nedbank Zimbabwe will continue to support it with the support of the Nedbank group.
Dr Sibiya said the transition to ZiG was one big milestone for the bank when people needed to accept the ZiG as the new official currency of Zimbabwe at the time and had very minimal impact on clients, which was a testament to the bank’s operations on the ground being quite solid.
He said the switch to the US dollar as the functional currency for Nedbank Zimbabwe enabled the bank to continue supporting the productive sectors of Zimbabwe.
“The demand from the productive sectors, agriculture, mining, infrastructure and energy and from our clients continued. Therefore, that helped settle the volatility that we did experience to that point.
“We did not see a dip in the lending from our side and continued to keep our doors open for clients throughout the tobacco season, merchants, as well as some of the farmers and some of the key drivers of gross domestic product (GDP) growth,” said Dr Sibiya.
He noted that in certain instances, where the bank could not keep up with the demand, it used internal liquidity in forex to continue lending specifically to productive sectors.
Nedbank, which has other operations in the region outside South Africa, said each country poses its own challenges that vary from time to time.
Dr Sibiya said at some point, Mozambique was flying with a GDP growth of 6.5 percent, but then there was a slowdown given some challenges of political instability, which also slowed imports at the ports of Maputo and Beira.
“Mozambique still poses as a massive opportunity for us and we see it as a growth sector, but at the moment it is going through a difficult time.
“Likewise, in Zimbabwe, there have been issues of currency volatility, sometimes shortages of currency, and again, we then switched to a lot of the digital platforms so we could continue servicing our clients in that market.
“And others, again, present different opportunities at different times, so I suppose it is for Nedbank in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Lesotho to respond according to market needs at all times,” he said.
On liquidity issues in the economy, Dr Sibiya said it is a market phenomenon that the group has to work with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to address.
“From a Nedbank point of view, we are doing our bit in terms of how we support our clients when they need to either liquidate some of their ZAR or when they need support from a forex perspective, because we are able then to talk to the Reserve Bank in order to support our clients, and we are able to continue providing liquidity,” he said.
He added: “From our perspective, a good relationship with the RBZ meant that we have been able to continue supporting our clients and also play our role in supporting the liquidity in the markets through the central bank.”
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