Mozambique post offices offer bank services

For the first time in its history, Mozambique’s national postal services utility — Correios de Moçambique — will from next year introduce rural banking services.

The weekly O Pais said in a report on its Sunday online edition that in the first phases, banking services would be opened in Maputo province in the south of the country and in the northern province of Niassa.

Currently the postal service utility operates postal and courier services which are only viable in urban centres.

The utility has been widely ignored by many people because of alleged poor service.

The banking service aims to help the rural population deposit their cash.

In Mozambique, banks and financial institutions are located in urban centres and most people in rural areas resort to keeping their money in homes or have to travel long distances to the nearest urban centres.

However, there are several non-governmental organisations operating banking clubs in the some of the country’s rural areas.

The report said the modernisation and diversification of the services of the national postal services represented one of the biggest challenges the parastatal faced as it aimed to reform its services.

Sources in the ministry of transport and communication were quoted by the paper as saying postal services authorities were in the process of obtaining operating licences and training required staff for the banking sector.