Ecobank Nigeria limited restated
that it has invested in state of the art mobile application that is
fast and accessible and gives better transaction incentive to the users,
thereby making their banking activities simpler, accessible and cheaper
and at their fingertips . This is the bank’s strategy for financial
inclusion, enabling more people do their banking transaction wherever
and whenever without necessarily visiting the branches. The Managing
Director of Ecobank, Charles Kie who stated this in Lagos says that with
this strategy, the bank hopes to increase its customer base in Nigeria
to over 40million in the next five years. This represents 40 percent of
the 100 million customers target of the Ecobank Group.
According
to Charles Kie, what financial inclusion “means for Ecobank is the
ability to allow more people into the banking space, doing their
transactions in cheaper and quicker ways”. He maintained that some of
the significant steps already taken include the ability of every citizen
to download the Ecobank mobile app and open an Ecobank Xpress account within minutes on the go. Also the Ecobank Mobile App enables
customers do instant payments as well as do instant transfers across 33
countries in Africa. The Ecobank App, he reiterated is the first of
its kind in Africa as it has an innovative payment solution, the Ecobank Masterpass that
allows customers the convenience to pay for goods at merchant locations
by simply scanning a QR code on their phones. Also Ecobank now has an
enhanced Retail Internet Banking platform with much speed, stability and
flexibility.
On
why the bank decided to merge some of its branches, Mr Kie maintained
that customers do not need to get to a physical branch before doing
their transaction. He alluded that “Ecobank is making banking as simple
as possible, giving the power to customers to do it themselves wherever
they are. Can you imagine people visiting banking halls just to check
their account balances or transfer money; this is not the idea of modern
banking. With the mobile technology, we have made banking cheaper and
more accessible. This for us is empowering the average citizen in the
street to do his / her banking without stress”.
He
said with the branch merger, Ecobank now boast of 405 branches evenly
spread across the country and supported with top of the range technology
application. In his words, “should there be need to visit any of our
branches, the customer will get optimal service.
Mr
Kie stated that the bank is deploying staff and other resources from
the merged branches to other ongoing projects, while also strengthening
the existing branches to make them more resourceful and up to speed in
their daily activities. He repeated that this is a well thought through
decision expected to fundamentally shape Ecobank’s business for better
performance.
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