Recognising that a larger percentage of the population have phones than bank accounts, Ecobank has leveraged mobile technology and successfully launched a range of new products in the past year. Combined with resilient results, it is a deserved winner of RBI’s award for best retail bank Africa, reports Douglas Blakey
Ecobank, a Pan-African bank with operations spanning 33 countries, has collected RBI’s award for best retail bank Africa in the annual RBI global awards sponsored by Fiserv.
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Ecobank’s mobile banking app, the only unified app across 33 countries, 18 currencies and 4 languages, has been especially successful. It offers 24/7 banking services conveniently via smartphone but the bank has also developed similar functionality on feature phones.
Other notable highlights include measure to tackle financial exclusion.
- The launch of Ecobank Xpress Account:
This KYC-lite account leverages the authentication already carried out by mobile network operators on their customers, and provides them an account instantly, subject to local regulatory approval. So far, the Ecobank Xpress account has been approved by 23 of 33 regulators of countries where the bank operates and the others are currently reviewing applications.
There are already over 2 million Ecobank Xpress account holders
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By GlobalData- Ecobank Merchant QR:
Ecobank was the first retail bank to launch the innovative MasterPass QR technology in Sub-Saharan Africa in partnership with MasterCard. The Merchant QR product removes reliance on electricity and expensive POS machines, uses push technology which reduces risk of repudiation and offers greater safety and security. Ecobank Merchant QR is revolutionising the payments ecosystem on the continent and the bank is successfully targeting large and small retailers and service providers with the product.
- Ecobank Instant Funds Transfer:
Ecobank also created its own payment platform, replacing SWIFT, for immediate transfer of funds across 33 countries in Africa. This eliminates the high tariffs on small cross-border transactions that were cost-prohibitive for some customers.
100 million customer target
As Ecobank strives towards its goal of serving 100 million customers, the bank is committed to an omnichannel approach.
While it has one of the largest branch networks in sub-Saharan Africa it is rapidly expanding its agency network from 10,000 to 500,000 by year 2020 so as to be at the doorstep of its customers in urban, rural and remote locations.
Other 2016 highlights include the launch of its Ghana Microfinance, a full digital financial services offering where phone users are able to open an account, make payments, transfer, request a micro loan – entirely on their mobile phones without any physical interaction with the bank.
This digital innovation for banking the unbanked is the first of its kind in Ghana and is also a first in West Africa. The bank is now in the process of replicating this across the Ecobank network in Africa in 2017 and beyond
