[1] The government made efforts to ensure commercial banks have continued to provide financial support to the small entrepreneurial business.
However the bank has a plan of adding about sixteen more offices and branches which would allow operations of microfinance services.
NMB encourages and expands microfinance in three ways: The bank has various branches in Tanzania, Dar es Salaam and in Moshi and Arusha.
It has managed to take an approach which is relatively risky to microfinance through embracing and extending it within their different activities (Lindvert et al., 2018).
However, unlike the other three commercial banks in microfinance, its primary source of funding comes from The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) which serves as one of CRDB's single largest shareholders.
CRDB is different from the other two national banks in that it primarily provides loans to microfinance institutions such as SACCOS (the largest type of MFI in this program).
CRDB as a more conservative bank has taken this approach in order to reduce their risks in microfinance by loaning to groups such as SACCOs instead of micro and small enterprise borrowers.
Yetu Microfinance PLC has branches in Mzizima, Mbagala, Ifakara, Zanzibar, Kilwa, Lindi, Amani-Tanga and Mngeta.
Microfinance has also provided non-farming rural citizens with employment opportunities by allowing them to more easily launch small businesses, such as carpentry and food vending.
This statistic becomes even more significant when paired with the fact that 90% of the impoverished in Tanzania live in the countryside and thus, rural households make up the majority of those unqualified for conventional banking services.
[6] Not only has microfinance affected socioeconomic status within Tanzania, it has also improved gender inequality within disadvantaged communities.
[7] One study’s results have shown a 90% increase in women-owned businesses and over 80% decrease in female genital mutilation and reported sexual assault in correlation with the introduction of microfinance.
[8] And while these services have not shown to improve Tanzanians’ access to healthcare,[7] they do appear to alleviate the stress of health-related costs, especially for parents.
Overall, while the details on microfinance’s impact on Tanzanian society and economy are yet to be determined, its implementation has certainly created a new financial culture based around saving and taking loans, replacing the previous negative stigma surrounding these practices.
A cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the impact on intimate partner violence of a 10-session participatory gender training curriculum delivered to women taking part in a group-based microfinance loan scheme in Tanzania (MAISHA CRT01): study protocol.
Microfinance Traps and Relational Exchange Norms: A Field Study of Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania.