Harare Bureau
NMB Bank last Friday launched its first Excellence Centre for high net worth clients. The centre is located at Sam Levy’s Village in Harare’s Borrowdale suburb. Officially launching the centre during an end of year cocktail party for NMB clients, held at the Glass House at Borrowdale racecourse, NMB Bank chief executive Benefit Washaya explained that the Excellence Centre had been established to ensure that, with the broadening of the bank’s market segments, high net worth customers could still receive the same high standard of excellent service they were used to.

He said the bank had also set up Excellence Desks in its branches in Avondale, Msasa, Southerton and Borrowdale in Harare and in its Bulawayo and Mutare branches, at which high net worth customers could obtain a priority service.

Two more NMB branches had also been opened, one in Kwekwe and the other in Masvingo. Another branch was being established in Chinhoyi. This branch should be operational within the next three months, he said. “The world around us is changing and experience teaches us that unless you keep pace with an ever-changing business environment, you’ll be run over by the crowd,” Washaya said.

“As NMB, we had to respond to these changes by adjusting our business model and broadening our market segments.” Washaya said that in the past the bank had looked after large corporates, medium-sized businesses and small businesses and high net worth individuals.

“Unfortunately, those market sectors have taken a battering. Because of that, we’ve had to enter other market segments we didn’t serve before,” he said. “I know some of you may have been inconvenienced during our transition period but let me be clear that by broadening our market segments we’ve no intention of dropping our standards.”

He went on to say that, as he had mentioned last year, a decision had been made to open Excellence Centres “to continue providing excellent service to our high net worth clients”, before declaring that he was officially opening the bank’s first Excellence Centre at Sam Levy’s Village. “We want all our customers, new and old, to enjoy the excellent customer service that’s synonymous with the NMB brand. This is why we’re making continuous investments in our technology and people in order to deliver this excellent service,” he said.

“Our focus remains on enhancing service delivery and product offering to ensure that our customers access all financial services under one roof,” he said, adding that the bank had recently enhanced its internet banking platform. From the feedback the bank had received, the site was now more user friendly, he said.

He said the bank was in the process of introducing a new mobile platform, which would come with a mobile app for both Android and Apple phones. He reminded customers that the bank was offering mortgages and encouraged them to visit the bank’s branches to apply for one. “In spite of the economic challenges, as a bank we continue to play our part in the country’s economic recovery efforts.

“One of the ways we do this is by sourcing lines of credit and this enables us to offer fairly priced facilities to our customers,” he said. By leveraging on its strong shareholding, which included African Century, LLP, Old Mutual, FMO, Norfund and AfricInvest, the bank had achieved considerable success in raising external lines of credit.

“Our approved lines stand at $60 million from six different funders and we’re negotiating for additional lines in the region of $40 million,” he said.

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