Dar
es Salaam — In spite of recent progress in financial inclusion, the
Tanzania's financial assets as a percentage of GDP declined to 36 per
cent as of December last year from 43 per cent in December 2015, the
Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has said.
The situation has caused Tanzania's financial system to remain shallow unlike those of neighbouring countries.
"The financial
system remains shallow and does not serve the real economy adequately,
and with a recent slowdown in credit growth the gap is expanding," says
BoT.
The number of
access points in the country is very small as there are 2.7 bank
branches per 100,000 adults compared to 5.4 in Kenya, while ATM
penetration stands at 6 ATMs per 100 thousand adults in Tanzania in 2015
(compared to over 10 both in Kenya and Mozambique).
"As of April 2016,
there were less than 5,500 POS terminals in the country, roughly 22 per
100 thousand adults (compared to over 100 in Kenya and 34 in
Mozambique)," says the central bank. Nationwide, there are currently
55,851 financial access points. Mobile money agents make up 81.1 per
cent of the base.
However, the ratio
of private sector credit to GDP has increased by only 3 percentage
points since 2009 and remains at a very low 14 per cent, well below the
average private sector lending to GDP ratio of 60-80 per cent in other
lower income countries (LICs).
Tanzania also has less than half the percentage of firms reporting access to credit as compared to neighbouring Kenya.
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