Africa's best bank transformation 2017: National Microfinance Bank of Tanzania

This year’s award for best bank transformation in Africa goes to National Microfinance Bank of Tanzania, a bank which has become a model for other African institutions in the areas of mobile banking, SME lending and microfinance. 

When NMB was split off from National Bank of Commerce and privatized 12 years ago, it was predominantly a “payment factory for government payments”, in the words of the bank itself. It had around 100 branches, a very small loan book and about 600,000 customers, mostly government employees. 

With support from Rabobank, the largest shareholder in NMB, which has been providing technical and managerial assistance since 2005, and support from the other large shareholder, the Tanzanian government, the bank’s management have made NMB the biggest, best and most profitable bank in the country.

It had no ATMs 12 years ago, today it has over 650. The bank expanded from 100 to over 189 branches and has invested in working through agencies, known as wakalas, to be as close as possible to its customers.