Tanzania: BoT Plans to Rollout Mobile Based Bonds

By Abduel Elinaza

Arusha — THE Bank of Tanzania (BoT) is planning to introduce a mobile platform that...

will enable retail investors to apply for and trade treasury bills and bonds.

The central bank said the platform is expected within this year after working out a methodology with stakeholders.

The plan centered on reaching mass participation for retail investors on bills and bonds but also reducing the low amount of tender to 100,000/- from the current 500,000/-.

Bank of Tanzania's Manager of Financial Markets, Lameck Kakula, said next month they expect to meet stakeholders including mobile network operators to map out a way forward.

"We are working with FSDT [Financial Sector Deepening Trust) in introducing the platform....this will enable more players to buy government securities," Mr Kakula said during five-day BoT's media seminar.

Currently, he said, they are working on stage requirement system of the mobile bidding platform for bonds before launching the initiative.

"April [next month] we will meet with stakeholders to map out process requirements and document them.

"We'll be in a better picture after the April meeting...but we want to launch the platform this year," Mr Kakula said.

The plan could potentially take investing in treasuries to the mass market by eliminating the friction in the current market infrastructure.

"The central bank aims at creating a simple platform where retail investors will tender directly without a third part using their mobile phones," Mr Kakula said.

Process requirements are documented expectations, targets and specifications for business/service processes.

They may be collected from multiple groups of stakeholders such as business units, customers, internal customers, users and subject matter experts.

Data from BoT showed that the number of individual investors increased from 2.0 per cent in Q2 of 2018 to 6.0 per cent in Q2 last year.

Mr Kakula said in Kenya through the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) introduced such services of using mobile phones mid last month.

Under Kenya's platform the new service will make it easier to process transactions of Ksh 140,000 (8.2m/-) and below.

"The bank is pleased to inform you about the roll-out of the Treasury Mobile Direct (TMD) services, designed to facilitate investment in government securities using the mobile telephone," CBK said in a notice to investors last month.