Displaying items by tag: Management

Financial inclusion is where individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs that are delivered responsibly and sustainably. Financial inclusion is defined as the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services.

The world is today witnessing the great economic growth due to the increase of population and modification of technology (FinTech). The financial markets experience the numerous increase of innovation that forces the economic trends to change globally. Tanzania is not an island on its own it share these global economic impacts.

In a competitive setup, by definition, many firms contend for a limited market share. In the financial sector, in particular, competition greatly affects consumers’ wealth and financial soundness of banks (Bikker and Bos, 2005). The competition also affects the quality and diversity of products and productive efficiency of financial institutions (Claessens and Laeven, 2005). In the globalized microfinance industry, where competition has become increasingly severe, especially among the MFIs in Tanzania and East Africa at large.

In December 2018, the parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania enacted a Microfinance Act which seeks to clarify the framework under which microfinance institutions are governed, regulated, and operate. The Act provides for licensing, regulation and supervision of a highly segmented microfinance sector in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar. It concretized a commitment made by the Ministry of Finance and Planning and the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) to transform the microfinance sector through better integration and regulation. This was to be realized through the National Microfinance Policy 2000 (NMP 2000), however the implementation of the policy was unsuccessful, leading to its revision in 2017. The 2018 Microfinance Act was enacted “in order to operationalize NMP 2017” whose main objective was to create an enabling environment for the microfinance sub sector to contribute to poverty reduction.