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The Digital Financial Services Guide
Digital banking is not a single solution, but a
combination of various solutions to reduce
dependence on traditional brick and mortar
branches and core banking systems. These
can be classified into four categories.
The first is offering banking services
through various channels, such as
mobile applications, USSD, internet
banking, Facebook and
WhatsApp chatbots.
Though internet and mobile banking are not
new concepts, their full potential is yet to be
leveraged. In Nigeria, for instance, select
banks have launched chatbots to address
any queries a customer may have. Examples
include ADA from Diamond Bank Nigeria and
Chatbot Leo from the United Bank of Africa.
The second aspect of digital banking is
enabling customers to open a bank account
without stepping into a branch.
An appropriate example in this context is ALAT
from Wema Bank in Nigeria. The player enables
customers to open accounts and avail of
various products in very short timelines.
The third aspect of digital
banking is enabling omni-
channel connectivity.
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created in silos. For examples, earlier a loan
service had to be developed separately for
each channel. However, with the omni-channel
approach, loans service has to be created
once in the back-end and can be offered to
consumers through all channels. Various
leading banks in Nigeria, such as Ecobank
are already offering or deploying this.
The fourth and the most recent
aspect in the digital banking space
is the hyper-personalization of
customer experience.
This, in fact, entails two aspects-what the
customer sees and the communication they
receive. Hyper-personalization will allow
different consumers to see the banking app
differently. For example, consumer A can see
a different banking app menu than consumer B.
Additionally; banks will be able to send more
targeted messages and campaigns rather
than following a carpet-bombing approach.
These initiatives are expected to enable
banks to increase their active customer base
in digital channels and also gradually move
customers from an acquired status to a revenue
generating status.
Simply put, banks ought to have a common
back-end and should enable multiple
channels to latch on to this. The advantage of
this architecture is that services need not be
Digital banking in Nigeria is
booming and a lot of action can be
expected in the years to come.
About the author: Sreehari J has over 6 years of work experience in sales and business
development and four years’ experience in working with clients across LATAM , Africa and SSEA .
At Mahindra Comviva, he is serving as Senior Manager in Business Development for the mobile
financial solutions portfolio. He primary role includes working along with prospective enterprise
customers to help them achieve their business objectives by utilizing products from the MFS portfolio.