• The investment is aimed at enhancing issues of digital services in the country.
• Central Bank will continue to promote innovations.
• Financial inclusion in Zambia now stands close to 70 percent with Digital Financial Service being the leading driver.

Science and Technology Minister discloses that Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) will soon be announcing additional investment in terms of fiber component to have various districts connected.

Speaking to officiate launch of the Digital Financial Services collaborating framework Felix Mutati noted the investment is aimed at enhancing issues of digital services in the country as a way of providing enabling infrastructure.

“So we are doing quite a bit in terms of the enabling infrastructure and we will continue doing that,” He said.

Mr. Mutati stated that “we are hoping that the Minister of Finance will listen to us that the old formula of taxing infrastructure should be reversed to deal with generating transaction from which you are going to Crop that Tax.”

“The More you transact the greater you ear,” added the Minister of Science and technology.

He stressed that no one can earn from infrastructure that has not been delivered because of Tax, hence need for enabling infrastructure to be delivered.

Speaking at the same event, Bank of Zambia (BOZ) Deputy Governor Operations Dr. Francis Chipimo who was giving remarks on behalf of BOZ Governor Dr. Denny Kalyalya said Central Bank will continue to promote innovations and ensure that protection of consumers is enhanced in order to consolidate and sustain gains made in increasing financial inclusion.

Dr. Chipimo said the country has continued to make significant progress in reducing the levels of financial exclusion by leveraging the digital transformation agenda especially in the area of Digital Financing Services which he says have increasingly become an important driver of financial inclusion globally with Zambian not being an exception.

According to him, “The objective of financial inclusion in Zambia is envisaged by the national financial inclusion strategy 2017 to 2022 and the Bank of Zambia financial inclusion strategy of 2020 to 2022”which is to achieve universal access and usage of broad range of quality and affordable services that need the services of both individual and enterprises.

And Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority Acting Director General Ethel Phiri stated that launch of the Digital Financial Services collaborating framework is aimed at empowering everyone with information on how various regulators involved in the oversight of digital financial services will operate and interact more effectively and efficiently.

She further noted financial inclusion in Zambia now stands close to 70 percent with Digital Financial Service being the leading driver.

Talking about DFS providers, Mrs. Phiri said “these have emerged as a game change in our country in so far as digital financial inclusion is concerned.”