Branch employees to become "financial advisors": Shareef

Bank of Maldives CEO and Managing Director Mohamed Shareef has said that establishing ATMs all over the Maldives was the foundation for the use of a "digital bank". He said that with that service, island BML branch employees will become "financial advisors" who will help build financial transaction awareness amongst the public.

While speaking during a PSM program broadcast yesterday, he stated that in the future, these employees will go door-to-door and provide information on digital banking and clarify as to how mobile banking is used.

"The financial advisors will become people who will go to shops and instruct them on how to manage their finances, how a loan process occurs and more. We are using automated tellers instead of tellers at branches. The branch staff will be spending their time on more important things in the future," said the CEO.

Shareef said that the reason for this change is since there are ATMs all over Maldives now, it will make it easier for people to deposit and withdraw funds without going to the island's BML branch. He also said that since the bank's model for the future is the "digital bank", the bank itself will run much better if island branch employees were to build awareness regarding digital banking within the public.

Shareef said that from 2000 till late last year, BML has established ATMs in 82 islands. He also said that the ATM service project has seen ATMs be established in 105 new islands from last November until the last 8 months.

"In the last 25 years, we have put up ATMs at an unprecedented scale. We have covered all of Maldives. I believe that this has made accessing banking services much easier for the citizens of Maldives," said the CEO.

He stated that while the government has been depositing MVR 5,000 monthly for the elderly living on islands, the withdrawal of said funds has been a strenuous process, with the card having to be taken from them and after getting past some difficult transactions.

Shareef highlighted that President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu had decided in November 2024 to indiscriminately establish ATMs in all sizes of islands upon request from many islands due to these difficulties.

"In the past, large sums of money would be withdrawn and kept on hand. Or the money a shop gets is not deposited and kept on hand. This is because it was not easy to deposit the money into the bank," stated the CEO.

However, with the start of the ATM establishing process, Shareef said that he saw a sizable amount of funds be deposited into the banking system. He said that this is what BML wanted and that moving forward, it would facilitate the expansion of the "digital bank" from BML banks.