{"id":42889,"date":"2018-03-13T16:54:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T20:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging21.finca.org\/uncategorized-en-ca\/convenience-security-efficiency"},"modified":"2024-11-04T02:07:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T07:07:24","slug":"convenience-security-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finca.org\/en-ca\/convenience-security-efficiency","title":{"rendered":"Convenience, Security and Efficiency: What Three FINCA Tanzania Customers Told Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

FINCA is constantly taking the pulse of its customers\u2014to understand our impact<\/a> and to measure satisfaction with our services<\/a>. Across 20 countries, our research managers collect and analyze data from customer satisfaction surveys. They also meet face-to-face with customers where they live and work. On a recent trip to Tanzania<\/a>, I decided to conduct my own informal survey, talking with clients who stopped by a FINCA Express location to make a transaction, and dropping by on one of them as she tended her market stall in Dar es Salaam.<\/p>\n

FINCA Express agents<\/a> are small businesses\u2014pharmacies, gas stations, mobile phone vendors or grocery stores\u2014that handle financial transactions on behalf of FINCA. While FINCA operates 24 brick-and-mortar branches across Tanzania, they are quite spread out. To increase our outreach and to better serve customers\u2019 needs, FINCA Tanzania has also opened 130 Express locations that handle deposits, withdrawals, payments, transfers and loan disbursements.<\/p>\n

Meeting with Clients Face-to-Face<\/h2>\n

When I met Hidaya Mhando at the FINCA Express location in Mwembechai, I immediately felt a strong connection with her. She and I were raised worlds apart: she is Tanzanian and I am Canadian. Yet we are both mothers of four-year-old daughters, who continually remind us that we\u2019re working for them and for their future.<\/p>\n

A new FINCA customer, Hidaya has a first loan of 500,000 Tanzanian Shillings (about $285), which she is using to buy thread and fabric in bulk for her embroidery business. She creates her own designs and fulfills orders for embroidered clothing, uniforms and linens for wholesalers.<\/p>\n

FINCA Express is located just a short walk from Hidaya\u2019s home and from the location where her Village Banking<\/a> group meets. When I met her, she was dropping by the agency to deposit the very first loan payments from her group. As a new customer, Hidaya couldn\u2019t speak to the overall FINCA experience. But she did say that she loves the security and convenience of having a FINCA Express location nearby. \u201cIt relieves the worry of carrying money across town,\u201d she said, as well as the time, cost and effort of catching a bus with her young daughter to travel to a distant bank branch.<\/p>\n

\"FINCA-Client-Tanzania\"