Partner, invest in modern technologies - Banks urged

Estelle Jacqueline Asare, Head of Digital and Innovation at Stanbic Bank, has asked banks to partner service providers and invest in modern technologies to help improve digital banking.

This, she said, would promote customer loyalty as banks provided “more personalized experiences.”

Ms. Asare said this when she joined a group of experts to discuss digital banking trends at the West Africa Digital Leaders’ Summit held at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City, Accra.

Sharing insights on the topic: “Making End-to-End Digital Banking a Reality”, she highlighted the importance of banks adopting “a customer-centric approach, learning from Fintechs’ agility and innovation”.

“Customer centricity and agility is what is driving fintech growth. They focus on customer needs and pain points…It is important that banks learn from them to enable the provision of better digital services.”

“If banks want to innovate and survive, we must look at how to partner complementary service providers and leverage each other’s strengths… “Integrating with platforms that enable us harness data, allows us to provide hyper customization to our customers and that is what makes them stick to us…,” Ms Asare stated.

She urged the “securing of [banking] systems through enhanced biometric verification” and cybersecurity as digital banking evolved.

“The growth of digital banking and AI calls for heightened focus on cybersecurity. If we don’t keep our eyes on the risks and ensure that the bank is secure, we will end up losing more than our digitally active customers. We will lose the bank itself,” she noted.

The West Africa Digital Leaders’ Summit event was organised by technology firm, Temenos. It brought together specialists, experts and industry leaders to interact on diverse topics.

The discussions focused on digital banking trends, “leveraging cloud banking, opportunities and trends in the payments sector”, and “how digital transformation can increase revenue and grow a bank’s customer base”.