Mrs. Colonette Tamba - Asst. Vice President Savings Annex

Liberian Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI) has introduced a new program to ease delays at its rural banking halls. The program is intended to capture as quick as possible, more customers who may not have the time to fill in forms to open new accounts at the bank or who are disadvantaged and cannot read and write at all.

Known as the 'smart capture program', this program is a computerized service that captures basic information from customers wanting to open new accounts at any of the bank's rural branches, especially in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County and Ganta, Nimba County. The customers wanting to open new accounts at the bank's branches in these counties are interviewed by the bank and the information is captured through the computerized system.

Mrs. Colonette Tamba is the Assistant vice-president for Western Union Savings Annex of the LBDI on Ashmun Street. She disclosed on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 that the new service being introduced in Ganta and Buchanan by the bank would soon be extended to other branches in Monrovia and its environs.

The smart capture program is a unique technological service where customers wanting to open new accounts do not waste their time to fill forms by writing or bringing in passport size pictures which sometimes take hours or a day. “What this program also does is that it captures all of the customers' information including their pictures, their own names and the names of beneficiaries, etcetera by the use of a web camera,” she noted.

Mrs. Tamba also disclosed that the smart capture program had been introduced into the bank's rural branches so as to cut down the problems customers underwent to fill in forms and to acquire passport size photos before opening their accounts. “They had to acquire passport size pictures but now they do not because the bank has now built a web camera at those two branches to take our customers' photos without any cost,” she stated.

The female Liberian banker pointed out that the bank had developed and commenced this program to facilitate customer drives to open new accounts at the bank. She told this columnist that the management of the bank would soon commence the service in Monrovia. “It is already set up and ready waiting for management's mandate to start,” she noted.

When asked why the bank decided to start the smart capture program at its rural branches in Bassa and Nimba, Mrs. Tamba said the bank took the decision because most of its rural customers did not have the time to delay opening new accounts because of their basic schedules. She also noted that most of the customers likewise were not educated to read and write and could not fill in the forms.

Touching on the current procedures being applied by the bank on customers opening new accounts in Monrovia and its environs, Mrs. Tamba said the requirements remained the same. She listed those requirements as passport size photos, personal identification cards which include a driver's license or student identification card. The Liberian banker said the minimum balance for opening an account in American Dollar at the LBDI was US$25 while the minimum balance for opening an account in Liberian Dollar at the bank was L$500.Mrs. Tamba indicated that the Western Union Service of the bank has a unit known as 'New Accounts' where customers obtain their forms. She explained that the unlettered customers were assisted to fill in their application forms by employees of the bank and said the completed forms are then processed through a computerized system at the bank to enable the person to obtain his or her passbook or bank book to declare their status.According to her, this procedure is practiced at all of the other branches of the bank except the Grand Bassa and the Ganta branches where the smart capture program is used. After the completion of these procedures, she said, the customers then go to the teller and then make their cash deposit. “There are no costs associated on our customers with these processes and procedures,” she revealed.

She called on the customers interested in opening new accounts with the bank to take advantage of the same opportunities and open their accounts there. “They do not have to come here on Ashmun Street to open their accounts, they can equally make use of the other branches because those branches offer the same services,” said she.

Mrs. Tamba pointed out that the new services being offered by the bank in recent times were parts of the bank's policy to take the LBDI as commercial bank to the people (customers) and not the people coming to it. “We are trying to do things that would encourage our customers to stay with us so we put their welfare first,” noted Mrs. Tamba.

The LBDI recently announced several new services and vowed to remain as an independent commercial bank. This statement came at the time when several international banks including the UBA and Zenith Bank announced that they had interest in opening bank branches in Liberia. However, in a strong position statement, LBDI declared that it had accepted the challenges, noting that it was ready and prepared to maintain its shares of the market in a competitive banking environment.

The bank is one of those banks that are bracing up to maintain their independence and to participate in an open and equitable banking environment where professional banking ethics and services offered would be the hallmark for customers' judgments. As a matter of fact, the bank turned 42 on Friday November 23, 2007.

The bank's managers have revealed high level of optimism for the Liberian economy and said LBDI would strategically position itself not only to deal with the prospective competition that would emerge in the banking sector, but to ensure protection for its market shares. For them as managers, the coming into the country of UBA and Zenith banks would not deter LBDI. “The bank's success story will remain unchanged,” stressed Mr. John Davies, vice-president and Comptroller of LBDI recently when he spoke with this columnist.

One major service that is being offered by the bank is online bank statement. This is a bank statement that is online; typically, the account holder can access the statement at any time by logging on to the bank's website. The online bank statement is a process developed and introduced by LBDI for customers to speedily access their bank statements. The introduction of this service by the Information Technology (IT) Department of the bank has laid to rest most of the difficulties the bank had encountered in printing out accounts or bank statements. Some customers had in the past complained of technical problems by banks in printing out their bank statements.

The bank also had problems in reaching out to customers or the customers obtaining their bank statements but the situation is now different and better.

The other service at the bank is the direct deposit service. The direct deposit program is a scheme introduced by the bank where employers pay their employees through credits to their accounts. This service is accessible at any of the bank's branches in the country.