GTBank Launches Orange Savings

Targets the Unbanked & Partners with Africell

GTBank has embarked on a country wide door-to-door campaign aimed at telling every Gambian how easy it is to have a bank account. It's that simple a message! Moreover, a message that GTBank believes plays a key role in The Gambia's development process as well. For many households, both in the urban and rural Gambian villages, people are very remote from traditional banking structures. This trend largely reflects the fact that most banks were strapped in their 'comfort zones' and did little to offer low-cost accounts that would meet the needs of every Gambian. Secondly, as the informal sector activity increasingly continues to take a central role in the economy this inevitably requires banks to expand services to non-traditional market segments.

The GT Orange Savings Account thus addresses what it considers the three key values important to the un-banked informal sector: affordability, accessibility and dignity. The Orange Savings Account has the following key features:

• No minimum opening amount
• No minimum maintaining balance
• No monthly charges or fees
• Free ATM Card
• Free Passbook
• Attractive interest rate of 5% p.a on all balances

Each GT Orange Saving Account Holders would be eligible for an Africell Mobile Phone, under PHONE FOR EVERY GAMBIAN Scheme and GTBank will open the accounts at their doorstep. Account holders can use mobile phones for banking transactions using GTBank mobile service. This partnership with AFRICELL is expected to transform the economy by reaching out to the informal economy in an unprecedented and innovative manner.

'We are telling people how easy it is to have a bank account and also mobile phones,' says Niania Dabo, the Divisional Head of Retail Bank for GTBank, Gambia's third largest bank, who tours around the sales kiosks overseeing the salespeople. 'Places like Sinchu Alhagi, Sukuta, Tujereng, Gunjur and the like are very remote from traditional banking structures. For an initiative like this to work it must have local input'. In the old days of armchair banking, such salespeople would be in their offices drinking coffee, but they are not. They are salespeople in orange shirts & caps, roaming the streets, knocking on the doors of the remote homes.

Economists have long argued that formal statistics underestimate activity in the informal sector. Under the old armchair banking rules, remote areas were ignored by banks partly because they were deemed commercially unviable, and partly because it did not occur to most bankers to expand services out of their 'comfort zones' says CEO Lekan Sanusi. Now, however, there is dual impulse for banks to reassess their old ways: there is growing awareness of the size of the informal sector and the rewards from tapping it, and banks also need to fulfil their obligations to the banking charter, which requires banks to make amends for the past, when they catered mainly to the mass affluent, by expanding services.

GTBank has taken the lead to cultivate a good savings culture in the Gambia, by providing the mass unbanked population the unique opportunity to take the first step to a steady future. Financial security has become more of a reality now, and GTBank has always been an active promoter of 'Save for a Rainy Day', because you never know what tomorrow will bring.

GTBank Orange Savings account is all about Plan, Build and Protect. The Savings account that can help you:

• Plan for your future needs
• Build your wealth
• Protect yourself and your loved ones.

For more details, you can the contact any of the following numbers

4376539 / 4396232 / 4224510 / 4485596

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