The 70 year old former mineworker in Welkom slowly swiped his new plastic card through the small portable banking machine. As it showed his transaction had been completed, he grinned. “Free at last,” he said. “Free at last.”
For impoverished communities like his that depend on mining, banking has remained beyond reach. Despite some rapidly growing national financial programs to serve the rural and township poor, nearly half of all South Africans still have no access to bank services. As they confront infrastructure hurdles and high establishment expenses, some banks are exploring lower cost mechanisms to reach the market of 17 million unserved potential clients. continued…
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