Report by KPMG Nigeria has ranked Wema Bank Plc higher in mobile and internet banking than other lenders.
The KPMG payments, transactions scorecard for digital banking released keeps Wema Ahead of other competing brands in the digital banking space courtesy of ALAT, a fully digital bank launched by the bank over three years ago.
The KPMG Nigeria digital channels report for the banking industry has has been released. The document, posted on the tax and auditing firm’s website ranked that Wema Bank higher in in internet and mobile banking space.
Wema Bank had three years ago, launched ALAT, a fully digital bank which simplified banking by creating a perfect blend of speed and functionality.
The KPMG Nigeria was signed by Partner & Lead Digital Transformation KPMG in Africa, Boye Ademola. He explained that as a leader, Wema Bank has capacity to onboard customers digitally end-to-end without the need to visit branches or agents and is delivering innovative products to enrich payment and transfer offerings.
He said that Wema Bank has also embarked on an aggressive play to accelerate the Self- Service agenda for customers and are able to engage and resolve customer complaints on the channels.
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The KPMG explained that based on its user journey-centred assessment of retail banks’ digital channels, it categorised banks into four distinct categories: Leaders, Challengers, Followers or Late Starters.
According to the report, challengers performed well on the user journeys, but Lack some of the key ingredients that should place them in the leaders’ tier.
“While they are able to offer effective user journeys on their channels, they fall behind the leaders on the array of capabilities and quality of user experience. These banks can become leaders in the near future if they are able to leverage design thinking principles to resolve user experience issues and deploy innovative capabilities that will deliver an engaging digital experience on their channels,” it said.
It said followers are unable to onboard customers digitally without requiring them to visit the branch, have several disjointed user journeys, limited self-service offerings and struggle with responding to and resolving customer complaints in a timely manner while late starters either do not have several important user journeys or offer several broken journeys. Late starters are unable to onboard customers digitally, have unwieldy user journeys, lack Self-Service offerings and struggle with respect to customer care.
KPMG said that as evidenced by the growth in mobile subscriber numbers and internet penetration in Nigeria, it is not surprising that the customer demography is rapidly changing.
“The new customer is becoming more accustomed to using mobile devices for access to services, including shopping, travel, entertainment, social interactions, news, financial services among others. With over 82 million Nigerians accessing the internet through mobile phones and accounting for more than 73 per cent of the country’s internet traffic, it is evident that there is increasing adoption of mobile by customers,” it said.
It said the recent COVID-19 pandemic lockdown further reinforces the need for banks to ensure that customers can access all services digitally as the restriction
of movement meant that branches were unavailable to serve customers.
However, banks that had developed strong digital capabilities provided their customers with sufficient digital alternatives during the lockdown period.
KPMG said that ensuring their ability to sustain service delivery, attract new customers and grow revenue despite the pandemic situation.
“Although restrictions are beginning to ease, the effects of the pandemic continue to be felt locally and globally, the changes we are seeing are likely not short-term as customer adoption of technology has been heightened. This presents a new reality for businesses to grapple with, thus, surmounting the challenges of this new reality will require banks to anticipate and prepare for the changes in their consumers’ needs, behaviours and preferences”.
“As we shift from short-term responses to the COVID-19 challenge to a new way of life, Financial Services providers must continue to provide essential services to customers digitally while protecting the well-being of their employees. Banks can leverage this pandemic as an opportunity to benchmark and identify gaps in their digital channels capabilities”.
