Cooperative Bank South Sudan has announced it will roll out visa cards for clients to enable them withdraw cash and enjoy other services from any part of the world.
This was revealed by Elijah Wamalwa, the Managing Director Cooperative Bank South Sudan during cock tail party organized at Pyramid hotel in Juba on Friday.
“Today, we had an interesting time introducing our board members to many of our key clients talking about some of the exciting things we plan to do like rolling out a Visa Card this year so that our customers can access their accounts across the world using the cards,” Wamalwa said.
“If you have an account in South Sudan and you have dollars in your account and you travel outside the country, it means when you are out of the country you do not need to carry too much cash on you, you can use Visa Card to go to a visa granted ATM even for another bank and you will be able to access your funds in your account here in South Sudan,” he explained.
He said the bank is set to roll out exciting credit products.
“We have been a leading company as far as credit facilities are concerned, but we are also looking at the vulnerable people there are lots of partnerships we are getting into with humanitarian agencies to see how best we can support the grassroots person to come up so that the little or much we have can be shared across by many more people,” Wamalwa said.
Elijah Wamalwa, Managing Director Cooperative Bank South Sudan speaks to journalists at Pyramid Hotel.
John Murugu, Group Chairman of Cooperative Bank Kenya said they are committed to helping grow Cooperative Bank South Sudan by sharing the very experience and success achieved with Cooperative Bank Kenya.
“What we have been trying to come up with in South Sudan is what we have achieved as a cooperative movement in Kenya, the contribution of the cooperative movement in the country is very very important, we account for nearly over 40 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as cooperative movement in Kenya so it is something like that we want to be replicated in South Sudan,” Murugu said.
South Sudan and Kenya Cooperative Bank are in a joint venture.
Murugu said Cooperative Bank Kenya started as a local bank over many years focusing on cooperative sector but overtime it has expanded to become the third -largest bank in the country.
He disclosed that the bank is playing bigger role in the development of Kenya.
According to Wamalwa they are set this year to open a branch in Wau town of Western Bahr El Ghazal State and also in Gudele suburb of Juba.
He disclosed that Cooperative bank South Sudan was incorporated in South Sudan in 2012 and we started operations in 2013, we are a subsidiary of the third largest bank in Kenya, in East and Central Africa and we have made some good progress in South Sudan,
Albino Akol Atak, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management hailed Cooperative Bank South Sudan for supporting and empowering South Sudanese to participate in development activities.
“For us as government it’s an opportunity to be part of you, especially this bank is helping because we are in the stage of building our nation and to build the nation needs such activities so that we can help our people contribute toward building the nation,” Atak said.
Atak also asked Cooperative Bank South Sudan to extend services to northern Upper Nile State, especially in Renk in order for farmers to access loans to enable them increase production.
“I visited Renk before I could come to this portfolio; we went and saw how the farmers are suffering, so if they get loans I think they will increase on production,” he said.
Atak said Kenya and South Sudan are part of the East African Community, adding that relations between the two countries need to be deepened to benefit people of the two countries.
