Zambian micro finance firm eyes foreign market
By BUUMBA CHIMBULU BETTERNOW Finance Company (BFC), a Zambian micro finance business, is exploring opportunities to expand to other countries following a successful 2017.
BFC chief executive officer, Noel Nkhoma, disclosed that the institution was exploring opportunities to open branches in Zimbabwe and Malawi.
He explained that BFC was targeting to open its first international branch in Harare by June this year with an initial capital of US$5 million and another in Malawi in 2019. “We are one exploring opening our first branch in Harare. We are currently at technical feasibility studies to open there and we are looking at investing an initial US$5 million and our target is that we should open the branch by June 2018,
“We want to create a regional pan African financial institution which goes beyond Zimbabwe, we will be looking at Malawi in the 2019 financial year,” Mr. Nkhoma said. Mr. Nkhoma also said the institution would soon start listing on Lusaka Stock Exchange.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nkhoma said BFC in 2017 disbursed over K63 million to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) while funding projects in economic sectors such as mining and energy.
Mr. Nkhoma said in an interview that the institution during the year under review deployed over 80 percent of its loans to SMEs in mining, construction agriculture, and transportation among others.
“We performed very well last year. This is because of prudent and targeted lending and we deployed over 80 percent of our loans to SMEs in mining, construction agriculture and transportation. In the 2017 financial year, our turnover loans was about K63 million to SMEs. We are sitting on client base of about 840, “During the year, we opened our Kitwe branch which is performing very well, as at to date it has disbursed to SMEs closer to about K14 million, in the last 6 months. We also invested in energy, we funded some new filling stations in Sinazongwe and Kaoma, and we financed their operations,” he said.