Includes special features of this country’s banking system and rules/laws that might impact U.S. business.
Last Published: 1/28/2019
The Tanzanian banking sector was liberalized in June 1999 and is now increasingly competitive.  Local state-owned banks have been privatized, though the government maintains minority shares in CRDB Bank, National Bank of Commerce (NBC) and National Microfinance Bank (NMB), among others.  Currently, about 40 local and foreign private commercial banks are registered with the central bank (Bank of Tanzania) and are operating.  International banks include CitiBank/Citigroup, Standard Chartered Bank, Barclays Bank and Stanbic Bank.  The influx of foreign banks has helped to improve the availability of financial services and the quality and pricing of existing services, either directly as providers of such services or indirectly through competitive pressures on domestic banks.  The banking sector remained sound and stable, liquid and adequately capitalized. The ratio of core capital and total capital to total risk-weighted assets and off-balance sheet items were 18.2 percent and 20.2 percent, well above the minimum regulatory requirements of 10 percent and 12 percent, respectively. The ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans, which measures the quality of assets increased to 10.6 percent from 8.7 percent. 
 
Interest rates vary from 17.20 percent for large, 18.31 percent for personal loans, with an average of 11.14 percent, while deposit rates remain around 2.84 percent. High interest rates in part reflect risk associated with consumer credit fraud; hence the Tanzania Bankers Association, in partnership with the BOT, has commenced information sharing for the development of a national credit reference bureau.  (The Tanzania Revenue Authority is rolling out a "smart" drivers' license, but tenders for a national ID card have stalled.)  Commercial banks invest more money in Tanzanian treasury bills than in any other sector, though the central bank was able to lower rates from 15.12 to 8.19 percent in 2017 to reduce competition with private borrowing.
 
The GOT is in the final stages of selecting a rating agency to determine the country's credit rating for a sovereign bond issue.  This will make it easier to attract financing for major investments in infrastructure.  Tanzania is currently relatively closed to outside capital markets, but officials are working towards eventual integration within EAC financial markets such that Tanzanians could participate in member states' offerings and vice versa. 
 
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Tanzania Market Access Banks