Microfinance in Tanzania

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Micro financing in Tanzania started in 1995 with SACCOS (savings and credit cooperative organization) and NGOs. It has since then contributed to the increasing success of international micro financing. Microfinance stills remains a relatively new in Tanzania since it has not penetrated yet. Since 1995, microfinance has been linked to poverty alleviation programs and women (Harvey et al., 2018).^[1] The government made efforts to ensure commercial banks have continued to provide financial support to the small entrepreneurial business. However a microfinance National Policy was implemented in 2002 to encourage and support microfinances in the country.  Since the implementation, micro financing was officially launched and recognized as a poverty alleviation tool. Due to its increase exposure and use in the nation, commercial banks have developed interests in to offer microfinance. There are various microfinance banks that functions as supporting institutions in the country that usually provide microfinance services. These may include the CRDB, National Microfinance  Bank, and AKIBA (Lindvert et al., 2018).^[2] However there are also other few banks that are concerned with micro financing in Tanzania such as the PRIDE and SEDA, Tanzania Postal Bank and FINCA. Community and small banks have also expressed interest in the same including the NGOs and other non-profit organizations.

According to the Survey conducted recently (2005) by the Bank of Tanzania, the ministry of Finance provided an update of the microfinance practitioners’ directory including other basic information regarding the institutions practicing micro financing as well as financial institutions,, commercial banks, SACCOS and NGOs and other credit institutions. Below is a list of three major commercial banks in Tanzania that provides microfinance services (Lindvert et al., 2018).