By John Muyamba
RUNDU – The community of Kavango East wants First National Bank to expand services in the region.
Currently FNB Namibia only has the Rundu branch serving the two regions of Kavango East and Kavango West. “FNB is the oldest bank in this region which is now demarcated into two but their clients are all over the two regions and they all have to come to one branch to do their banking especially over weekends,” said one concerned client, who only wanted to be identified as Kleopas.
FNB Namibia however says it is aware of the situation in Rundu and to help remedy the matter the bank is increasing its ATMs in the area. FNB Namibia spokesperson Victoria Amupolo said the bank’s chief of operations Louis Potgieter, area manager John Bastiaans and service manager Linda Shininge visited the region in December with the view to improve operations.
Residents are however not satisfied with the bank’s response, saying the ATMs are insufficient, as there is no ATM in Kavango West, and people still have to commute long distances to withdraw money.
The Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, John Mutorwa, who is currently on leave in the region, was also not happy with how the bank is operating and said that he engaged the FNB management sometime ago to look into the situation.
“They should really improve on service delivery, our people are suffering, imagine they have to travel long distances to get to the bank and squeeze in one branch and they have to stand in long queues all day. This is not good, our people need better services, it has to improve after all it’s the oldest bank in this town and the majority banks with them,” Mutorwa said.
Amupolo nevertheless said that FNB Namibia has over the years ensured that numerous avenues have been opened for customers to make use of the bank’s self-service channels as well as the numerous options for e-banking. “It is no longer necessary for the greater part of your banking needs to physically go into a bank. We have the technology to assist customers outside of our branches,” she said.
Residents of the two Kavango regions are not keen on using electronic banking though. “I cannot use those things because I do not know how to and my cellphone is not one of those that can do those things,” said one resident.
Amupolo said the bank has no plans to open an additional branch for various reasons. “We will be in the current Rundu location for some time still, due to the lease agreement and the lack of other development in Rundu. The whole of northern Namibia is a major growth node that warrants the attention it deserves and we can assure the public that we are actively pursuing options to increase our footprint according to our strategy of ‘bricks to clicks’. Building own buildings might not be the best option in all respects and therefore we need to look at other developments taking place, the current Safland development being one of them,” Amupolo said.
She stressed that customers do not need to visit a branch of FNB Namibia in order to conduct banking if they embrace electronic banking.