Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus in Nigeria and the easing of the lockdown in Lagos State, many banks have carried out several measures to maintain the safety of its staff and customers. The United Bank for Africa (UBA) is one of those banks as they have introduced new features that allow ‘group transfer’ and ‘transfer to phone number’ on the newly revamped version of its mobile app.
Samson Aneke, Group Head, Digital Banking, UBA, speaking in an online press conference, said the group transfer feature was launched to equip micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSEMs), the feature is said to allow telephone numbers to enhance financial inclusion across Africa against the background of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. He further went on to say that the ‘Group transfer’ option allows users to create groups, save members and transfer funds to up to 100 members at the same time.
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Speaking on the modifications done with the revamped UBA mobile app, he said,
“With this option, the user can do a single lump sum debit and multiple credits to beneficiaries irrespective of banks where their accounts are domiciled.”
Making it the first app in Africa to be able to pay salaries which at the same time addresses a major need in the MSME space. He also explained further saying,
“We are pushing services to what we call Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). These are for sustainability, banks that would survive in the coming days would mean that the more BYOD you do, the more are ready to survive. We are taking services to the devices that customers hold themselves. You would be happier to use the device you came out with from your home to transact than shared facilities”.
Reiterating the measures the bank is putting in place to ensure safety for everyone, he said,
“We are thinking of voice banking across various channels, we are thinking of image withdrawals where we can just scan your image and you can withdraw. So some of the things that would replace POS, some are already here while some are still in the making like QR code we are already in the current app, so you wouldn’t need POS. We are making QR code so easy so that you can have your app on the merchant to like and use regularly.”
