‘Build trust with clients’

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU

must build trust with their clients as it is the essence of success, says the Financial Sector Deepening Zambia (FSDZ).

FSDZ chief executive officer, Betty Wilkinson, said clients needed to trust the financial service providers to ensure safety and soundness of the sector.

"We are adding digital finance and other services to our markets, so we also need to develop trust in these new services to advance financial inclusion. FSDZ is committed to increasing trust in the financial markets,because trust is the essence of success," Ms Wilkinson said.

Ms Wilkinson was speaking in Lusaka at the Master Class for business reporters organised by FSDZ and the Zambia Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR).

Ms. Wilkinson said commercial banks and other financial service providers also needed to trust clients to be responsible about their money and pay their debts.

She explained that FSDZ believed that trust could be increased in finance through measures such as improving understanding among all players in the sector about knowledge, needs and opportunities of each group.

Ms Wilkinson said it could also be increased by supporting the market to reduce the cost of financial services, both for customers and for financial institutions as well as in addressing innovation of the products.

"Some of the recommendations for areas FSDZ believes should be priority in moving financial inclusion forward: we need small payments to government to be made possible via digital financial services. We need to think of savings as a viable option for the financially excluded," she said.

Ms. Wilkinson also said FSDZ had invested in the media training to enhance the capacities of reporters in business reporting as well as to build a community of practice among Journalists so they could amplify the mission of the institution's respective organisations.