While bringing financial services to the people is one step towards cultivating a saving culture and ultimately fighting poverty, most of the banking activity is concentrated around Kampala, the country’s capital and other large towns, leaving 42% of Ugandans at the mercy of the informal financial sector, and another 30%, totally excluded from the financial services sector, according to a 2010 Finscope report.
However, while it appeared as a problem then, smart innovative banks including PostBank, Centenary and Opportunity viewed it as an opportunity, they introduced mobile units/vans to reach out to the unbanked in rural areas who would otherwise have no access owing to physical distance or more abstract but no less daunting barriers like “banks are only for rich people
