A huge transformation is yet to be witnessed in African financial system. Digital financial services are widely dominating the financial system, for instance marketing is evolving from the traditional medium to digital medium, digital financial service platforms are expanding in Africa.
From banking services without branch and digital wallets to transacting over mobile devices, banks are transforming how customers use their services, riding the continent’s rapidly growing youthful and tech-savvy population.
Regarding recent advancements in digital financial services, it is observed that “Africa is benefiting from an advantage they are not aware of, this unawareness creates opportunities for the external investors to leverage on.
The sudden advancement of digital platforms across the continent is multi-engaging, attracting not only digital start-ups but also creates opportunities yet unveiled, hence, giving the indigenous banks opportunities to leverage on. These includes the nearly 75-year-old WEMA Bank in Nigeria, which in 2018 launched the country’s first fully digital bank, providing branchless customer service. Ecobank has been a front-runner with the successful rollout of its digital banking platform, Xpress, which it says has attracted 3 million customers across Africa in just six months.
Standard Chartered Bank is another institution seeking to embrace disruption through digital transformation. It launched its first purely digital bank in 2018 in Côte d’Ivoire, says Jaydeep Gupta, head of Retail Banking in Africa and Middle East.
Chijioke Dozie, CEO and co-founder of Carbon, a Lagos-based financial-services company, says “Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya offer significant opportunities for digital banking, especially among the younger crowd, many people under 30 have largely been underserved by the traditional banking system,” that means, there is a need for advanced digital financial services in the system to satisfy the lag across the continent at large.
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