PEUBO pursue to become micro lending industry leader

PEUBO Investments (PTY) LTD, a commercial of Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) is improving its services to become the leading micro lender company in the country, board chairperson, Samuel Aboneng.

He was speaking at PUEBO’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Gaborone on Tuesday, December 12, 2023. The company’s vision is “To be most reputable micro lender in the industry,” and Aboneng said the vision was propelled by the overarching of creating BOSETU as a high performing organisation.

Reporting on the PEUBO’s welfare over the past 12 months period, the company has committed high level key performance indicators that include, to increase the loan limit, as well as to improve turnaround period by half from 48 hours to 24 hours. In addition, PEUBO is to introduce at least two new products by the year, 2025.

Aboneng told the gathering that the strategy has developed some key strategic priorities, which will form part of the monitoring tool to be used to measure its successes of failures, and it emphasises the need to improve customer experience. “This to be achieved through digital transformation strategy. To have an competitive advantage through online loan applications, online financial services, automated internal processes and digital governance. In addition PEUBO intends to improve customer experience through feasibility studies for new services and products, and opening up the market. We alos intend to improve risk and compliance management and also improving marketing strategies,” Aboneng said.

It is however a course without challeng- es as PEUBO faced cash flow challenges for a while and the situation is expected to worsen for a while to allow customers to get accustomed to the use of the new technology system.

“As you are aware, there was a time, we approached one of the potential financiers for funding and the process stopped at due diligence stage after it was realised that PEUBO was then not overly ready for a transaction of that nature. With the implementation of the new IT system, we plan to start funding process again where not less than P150 million will be sought. As shareholders we seek your support and possible endorsement of the initiative,” said Aboneng.

For his part, PEUBO’s general manager, Sydney Mogapi said the company prioritises its clients hence recently initiated and completed a massive project to reduce incidences of ‘unanswered calls’ at the call centre. Mogapi promised a 60 seconds wait for clients at the call centre as PEUBO plans to introduce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

“We plan to launch a CRM in the next year that helps to automate tasks to save time and resources. Also the CRM is to increase sales and customer retention by providing personalised and timely service. In addition to collect and analyse customer data from various channels to understand their preferences and behaviour,” said Aboneng. He further the CRM is to also generate detailed reports and insights to improve decision making and strategy and improving internal communication and collaboration among teams.