Standard Chartered Bank has announced plans to step up investment and leverage its unique footprint and international banking expertise to drive growth in Africa.

Through a new brand campaign, ‘Here for Africa’, the bank is reiterating its commitment to invest in Africa’s future and continuing to support key growth sectors across local economies, including infrastructure, telecommunications, transport, retail and trade.

Under the bank’s refreshed global strategy announced late last year, the bank reiterated its heightened focus on Africa, seeking to grow its business across all markets, with a keen focus on corporate and commercial segments. Standard Chartered operates across 38 African economies, 16 on a full-presence basis and 22 on a transactional basis.

The bank’s footprint of 180 branches and outlets now has an extended reach, thanks to the bank’s continuous evolution of its digital platforms and mobile banking channels. Sanjay Rughani, CEO for Standard Chartered Bank in Tanzania, said “Standard Chartered Bank continues to be committed to our business in Tanzania and the launch of our ‘Here for Africa’ campaign is timely.”

We are currently working on a number of initiatives that will see our Bank in Tanzania (BoT) further supporting the economic growth of our country through various segments of people and organisations spanning from individuals, corporate and commercial clients as well as the government. Standard Chartered Tanzania continues to deliver tangible benefits to support local economic growth.

These benefits include development of human capital; roll-out of digital banking solutions to more than 15,000 retail customers and sovereign advisory expertise; attracting new investor capital from across Europe, US, Middle East and Asia, as well as empowering local entrepreneurs by bridging the gap between large multinationals and local suppliers through our successful supply chain financing proposition.

All these initiatives help cement our legacy while building a bright future for many generations of Tanzanians in line with the Government Agenda. Standard Chartered’s ‘Here for Africa’ campaign encompasses above the-line-visuals, a television campaign as well as tailored sponsorships, client initiatives and focused events which promote the bank’s regional capabilities.

The extended reach of the campaign means audiences across 38 African and a further 10 international markets will witness the bank’s focused commitment on the continent. Speaking in Ghana at the launch of the Africa-focused campaign, Sunil Kaushal, the Regional CEO of Africa & Middle East said, “Africa is an integral and a valuable economic partner region within our unique footprint across the region, Asia and the Middle East.”

“This campaign is about our show of commitment and confidence in a continent that we have been in for over 150 years. We consider ourselves truly African – every one of our Sub-Saharan CEOs is African, our people who lead and manage our strategy are African and our strategy is tailored to suit Africa’s specific trends and business dynamics.

We are indeed here for good and here for Africa.” Currently, Standard Chartered supports over 1 million retail customers in Africa and over 25,000 commercial, corporate and institutional clients.

In November, last year, the bank committed to USD3 billion in strategic investments globally, over the next three years – a commitment which has already seen Africa benefiting with a multi-market upgrade of digital and mobile banking platforms.

Originally published on DailyNews Tanzania