Making A Better World - Milton Louw

By: Milton Louw The banking population in Namibia has increased substantially in 2009 according to the World Bank’s Financial Access 2010 report released on Thursday, 16 September. The number of deposit account holders in Namibia has grown by 23 percent, with statistics confirming the resilience of the seven commercial banks during a year weighed down by the international financial crises. According to the report, more than three quarters of the population (752 per 1000 adults) hold deposit accounts and 20 percent have loans with financial institutions. In comparison, the report shows that sub-Saharan Africa had an average of 163 deposit accounts per 1000 adults and only 28 bank loans per 1000 adults. In addition the report shows that the disbursement of loans shrank across sub-Saharan Africa last year, with Namibian loan accounts declining in volume by 36 percent. The most remarkable was that Namibia scored the highest with 1185 “Depositors with Other Depository Corporations” ...

A recent article of the Namibian newspaper (July 2010), quotes a study which has found that "Regulators need to up their game". The study "expressed concern about the conduct of the industry and has warned that the reputation of the Bank of Namibia (BoN) and the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) will suffer unless they step up supervision." In the study, mention is made of certain insurance companies that make use of misleading advertising when offering products as "free". This has to be a wake up call to us as consumers. As a lobby group, we have regularly been contacted by customers who do not receive the service they expected when they bought the products as advertised. A common complaint is about the legal insurance product so widely advertised in our newspapers, radio and television. In these adverts, the consumer is made to believe that a monthly premium will give them access to legal assistance should the need arise....