National Bank powers Sand Music Fest
National Bank of Malawi on Monday announced its continued partnership with Impakt Events, who are the organisers of the Sand Music Festival, by pumping US$15,000 approximately K11.5 million into the festival set to take place in October.
The bank announced the exciting news during a press briefing at their headquarters in Blantyre.
National Bank of Malawi Head of Strategy, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Wilkins Mijiga, said having worked with Sand Music Festival last year where they pumped in US$ 10,000, they thought of coming back to, among others, help promote tourism.
He said having noticed that the music festival scene is something that Malawians have embraced whole heartedly, they saw to it that there was a need for a secure platform of payment hence bringing in Mo626.
“The Sand Music Festival is growing and it is something which is promoting tourism and we thus want to help promote tourism, create tax for the government and create employment,” Mijiga said.
He said their concern when they sponsored the festival last year was that there was a lot of fraud which saw the organisers not making money.
“Some people produced their own tickets which was stealing while the organisers did not benefit and these people reaped where they did not sow and so as a responsible bank, we thought of bringing a secure mode of payment,” Mijiga said.
He said the tickets during the festival will only be pre-sold through Mo626 which he described as a cool mobile banking system which is absolutely free.
“Mo626 is the best mobile phone banking as it is for free and through it we want to promote electronic mode of payment and we are using this brand as a payment system. It is a flagship brand in terms of electronic platform of payment as one can use any mobile phone and paying via Mo626 is,” he said.
Flanked by other National Bank officials Enala Chirwa and Ella Kabambe, Mijiga described Mo626 as a holistic product stressing that using it for payment at the festival means that there will be no revenue leakage.
He said they pay their money in dollars because the festival makes their payment in dollar especially foreign artists citing Jamaican artist Busy Signal, who was the festival’s headliner last year.
Sand Music Festival Director, Lucius Banda, who is also a Member of Parliament and a musician, was over the moon with National Bank of Malawi’s sponsorship.
“We are very excited with what National Bank has done. We don’t take their sponsorship for granted. We have always pleaded with the corporate world to support us and we are happy to have partners like National Bank,” said Lucius popularly known as Soldier in the music circles.
He said Sand Music Festival is a festival for Malawians and by Malawians and that through it, the country was benefiting a lot.
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