Background

New Finance Bank, the first bank to open inside a camp in Southern Africa, takes an innovative approach to serving the underserved in Malawi. Here, refugees have limited opportunities to be productive, facing legal restrictions to their movement, and lacking access to land to cultivate and education to expand their futures. The camp itself is overcrowded, and as a protracted situation, UNHCR and partners lack sufficient funding to comprehensively meet the needs of the population.

The bank aspires to make people’s lives better through convenient and simplified banking using technology and partnerships. For UNHCR this heralds a new approach for the financial inclusion of refugees. For people like Emery, a refugee working with the bank, it is transformative.

Services provided

• Saving accounts
• Group lending
• ATM access
• Forex Services
• Training courses on financial literacy and business skills
• Tailored services according to the needs of the person of concern