Ayear after Nigeria’s Access Bank Plc’s acquisition of African Banking Corporation of Botswana Limited (BancABC) Botswana, the subsidiary has registered a significant increase to its online banking customer base.
According to Access Bank Botswana, there has been an increase of over 50% in usage of transactional platforms, and the volume of transactions processed through the system has more than doubled.
The Bank attributes the growth to a well-orchestrated digitalisation strategy implemented during the 2021 financial year.
Access Bank Botswana Managing Director Kgotso Elvis Bannalotlhe said: “A new board approved strategy was agreed by end of November – focusing on rapid deployment of Group technology to remediate and accelerate our digital and technology ambitions, growth in physical footprint commensurate with our profile as well as improving our value proposition for rapid customer growth.
“We began to execute this strategy immediately alongside completing the technology integration.”
Access Bank Chairperson, Lorato Nthando Mosetlhanyane, said, “The Bank has already begun a P200-million investment programme to enhance its distribution footprint, leveraging Group digital assets to move beyond a lending dominated book, and into a full-service digital banking ecosystem with diversified revenue lines.”
Access Bank Plc regards Botswana as a key market, spurred by an increase in subscribers to its platform, SaruMoney, as clients embrace the bank’s digital solutions in 2021.
“We introduced a new key functionality, Fast Cash, in response to a clear need by clients for an improved and simplified method for the movement of money. This led doubled our digital subscriptions,” said Bannalotlhe.
He said the bank wants to leverage digital assets and channels to emerged as a transactional banking franchise.
“As part of our strategy of bringing the bank closer to our clients, we launched virtual banking services that provide another touchpoint for clients to interact with the Bank. Further to this, we augmented our sales and service channel to offer 24-hour access to cash-in services with the introduction of ATM depositor machines.”
In addition, as part of the digitisation process, the Bank has also rolled out its instant card issuing and pin reset, reducing card delivery times to immediate issuance.