It pays to bank with Standard Bank!

MASERU– IT pays to bank with Standard Lesotho Bank. Two local schools, Butha-Buthe High School and Maseru’s Seventh Day Adventist Primary, discovered this truth this week after they each walked away M20 000 richer for banking with Standard Lesotho Bank.

The reward is part of the bank’s Public Sector Campaign, which is meant to give back to both public and private schools that have opened accounts with it since January this year.

The two schools were selected from those that have had transactions in their accounts since January.
Under this arrangement, once a school deposits money in its Standard Lesotho Bank held account, it automatically stands a chance to be selected for the reward.

Standard Lesotho Bank CEO, Mpho Vumbukani, said as a bank they understand that in order to have a functional and productive education sector schools and institutions of higher learning require cash flow management and liquidity solutions that are specific to their needs.
“This is why our priority is to provide them with the right banking solutions so that in the final analysis we have administrators that are able to focus on what is more important, which is nurturing and developing our future leaders whilst we take care of the financial needs of their schools,” Vumbukani said.

Vumbukani gave a glimpse into the Human Development Report issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that ranks Lesotho number one in Africa and number five in the world on the list of countries that invest more in public needs.
“Over the years we have provided flagship payments and collections solutions to make paying fees a seamless exercise for parents and schools,” Vumbukani said.

The campaign hopes to see four more schools walk away with M20 000 each before the end of the year.
The principal for the Seventh Day Adventist Primary, Lucy Moyo, said she did not have enough words to express how happy she was for her school.
“When at first we asked parents to pay school fees at the bank it was such a hustle for parents to understand why we wanted them to go and pay at banks when all along they would bring the money to school,” Moyo said.
“All we were trying to avoid was having cash in our hands,” she said.

Moyo said however they didn’t know that in the long run having an account with the bank would yield such good fruitage.
“Every day the school is growing. When we first started in 1984 we only had 20 students and now we have 844 students,” Moyo said.
“With such numbers we need all the assistance we can to make the school environment enjoyable,” she said.
Thinyane Makoti, the Butha-Buthe High School principal, said they were not aware that Standard Lesotho Bank was running a campaign of this kind.
“It is very unusual to win a competition without competing,” Makoti said.

Makoti said he understood that they were selected “because we have many students, who were attracted to this school because of the best results that the school is producing”.

He also said it is because teachers are working hard.  “It is only if there is stability within a school that there will be good results,” Makoti said.
“So all of the successes we have today is a result of the collective effort of everyone involved in the school directly or indirectly,” he said.

Rose Moremoholo