Banks charged to embrace digitalisation

By PETER EGWUATU

Banks operating in the country have been advised to fully embrace digitalisation as a way forward to woo customers and thus improve their profitability.

The guest speaker at the 2014 Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN)) Graduate Induction & Price Awards Day, Mr. Toluwaleke Adenmsoun, who is also Managing Director, Accenture Financial Services, advised banks in Nigeria to respond to changes in financial services landscape to be able remain relevant and sustain the profitability that has returned to the sector after global crises witnessed some years back.

Speaking on the topic titled “Competitive Response to Digital Disruption in Banking”, Adenmsoun said “ Advancement of the digital ecosystem has brought significant impact to people’s financial life in areas traditionally dominated by banks, the question in not if but how fast banks can respond to the challenges.”

To this extent, he stated that it is no longer business as usual for banks, stressing that digitalisation has disrupted the financial services landscape. “There is clear evidence that consumer behavior and expectations of service and experience are changing.

We have 25 banks and a network of some 5,500 branches nationwide. The number of banking customers is between 22 million and 25 million. But there are 127 million active mobile connections (71 per cent mobile phone penetration) and 25 million users of Smartphone (a fertile market for digital play) he declared.

Continuing, he said “ Digitalisation is not a future possibility for Nigeria, it is today’s reality. On internet, there are over 63 million internet data subscribers (the highest in Africa, and fourth largest in the world).

On face book, there are 11 million users (Largest in Africa) and 4th fastest growing number of users worldwide.

For Twitter, there are 1.6 million profiles and Linkedln, there are 1.03 million business profiles and an unconfirmed number of professionals” Adenmsoun, expressed that there is convergent disruption, in the form of new entrants in the sector, adding that it has been a growing factor in the banking industry.”

The take off of e-commerce and the emergence fast rising nline outlets like Jumia and Konga is opening up new avenues for e-payments and data collection” he added.

In this regard, he advised banks to take fresh look at the digital customers with an understanding of the impact of not paying attention to them and the opportunity that abound.

Culled from www.vanguardngr.com