Mobile Money has been the core of the financial services in the country close to a decade now, the main reason for its popularity revolves around convenience and the ability to include people from all walks of life in using the service. The current changes in transactions tariff rates can push a few customers that are cost sensitive to look for a cheaper alternative to the mobile money platform.
One of the most uncelebrated reasons for Mobile Money success was the high number of their agents visible almost in every corner and the mainstream banks are copying the same blueprint for their agent bank business model. The number of bank agents posters are growing around the urban neighborhoods and when this is properly harness can give mobile money a good run for its customers.
Since the proliferation of mobile money, many people have forgotten to pay attention to traditional banks and the solutions they offer. A lot has happened in the banking sector and many innovative solutions have been developed to go toe-to-toe with the mobile money platform.
We have taken the liberty today to curate a list of some of those solutions for you.
Agent Banking
Shared agent banking is a direct competition that the traditional commercial banks have in response to mobile money. This is an initiative that enables bank agents to serve customers of any member bank through a shared platform.
A number of banks are already connected on to the system including Stanbic Bank, Barclays Bank, Bank of Africa, Diamond Trust Bank, DFCU Bank, Housing Finance Bank and GT Bank.
Other banks like Equity and Centenary Bank seems to be running an independent systems but this should tell you about the growing need for the agent banking model of bringing services closer to clients.
Customers are able to withdraw, deposit, create new bank accounts and make other forms of transactions from the bank agent without necessarily having to go to the bank branch and the commissions are a huge incentive bringing in more agents as possible.
Debit/Credit Card solution
Everyone knows well enough that the world is heading towards a cashless economy where the need to carry cash to buy goods will become obsolete at one point. MTN is trying hard enough to break into this service business and enable peer-to-peer payments with MoMo pay but seems the market isn’t ripe enough yet for the solution to take off.
However, the banking system has a powerful alternative in their arsenal(Visa, Mastercard and Union payment options) and when domestic consumers choose to adopt it before the insurgent of mobile money it will be a huge advantage.A case in point is Centenary Bank which has taken measures towards rewarding customers for the use of their Cente Visa Card.
The new generations of entrepreneurs major compelling goal will be to triangulate on the merchant to consumer relationships and banks have a huge upside in this sector with the credit/debit card solutions and the only task remaining is to get consumers in using it.
Mobile and Internet Banking
Traditional banks are responding to mobile telecoms and independent mobile money service providers by offering the banking services to mobile users as well. Most banks are already using the mobile banking solutions mostly using the smartphone applications (both android and iOS) and the good-old USSD shortcodes which conveniently run on any phone.
Most of the banking applications offers a similar solution to the mobile money platform which involves making payments of utilities and school fees.
Stanbic Bank’s Instant cash solution
Stanbic Bank Instant cash solutions is one of the most innovative cash sending platform which allows an account owner to send money to any individual without an account. The service allows a customer to withdraw money from the ATM with the help of a code send to their mobile phones and a temporary password.
