CRDB BANK TO PROVIDE LOANS TO CUSTOMERS USING TEMBOCARD

CRDB Bank Managing Director, Dr Charles Kimei displays the newly introduced credit cards.

CRDB Bank’s TemboCard has broken its own record and become the first credit card in the country's history.

TemboCard, introduced 16 years ago as a debit card to facilitate financial inclusion while reducing queuing for bank service, has been upgraded to credit facility that can advance interest-free loan of up to 50m/-.

The Bank Managing Director, Dr Charles Kimei, said they teamed up with MasterCard International to launch the first credit card to enable customers to borrow money hassle free.

“This is a truly credit card in the country. The credit attracts no interest for the first 30 days," he told reporters in Dar es Salaam recently, adding the 30 days would be a grace period and after that it will attract an interest of five per cent,” Dr Kimei told journalists. The credit card comes in two platforms namely TemboCard World Rewards and Tembo- Card Gold Credit card.

However a customer can have both debit and credit cards. The Gold Card enables customer to get the loans of up to 30m/- while World Reward goes up 50m/-. However, not all customers who are eligible to have the credit card will have the maximum limit. Other will fall as low as 1.0m/- depending on customer’s behaviour. “The limit to borrow depends a lot on the customer account behaviour analysis,” Dr Kimei said.

Both credit card customers are allowed to use 30 per cent of the amount of loan as cash, while 70 per cent will be used to make payment via Point of Sales (PoS) and online purchases.

The bank said the introduction of the credit card was propelled by SMEs and crossborder traders who frequently want emergency credit when at tight situation. CRDB Director of Alternative Banking Channels Philip Alfred said the bank cooperated with MasterCard in simple basis that was the first to be approached. “It is a case of following in love in the first date,” Mr Alfred said when answering why MasterCard was picked first.

MasterCard Country Manager for East Africa Anthony Karingi said the credit facility bureaus have assisted a great deal on credit this ‘pure’ credit card. He said Kenya leads in the region for having many credit cards followed by Tanzania and Uganda.