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Best Bank: Barclays |
Botswana is famously one of the richest and most benign countries in Africa, with its small population and large reserves of diamonds. How can a bank make a difference? Barclays, never an immediate first thought when it comes to innovation, has started reaching out to the local community, even opening a branch near the Orapa mine. It is also opening a series of in-store banking branches, putting small-scale offices in large retail stores, and taking the products and services to the customer. The in-store concept and existing branch network will be supported by a state-of-the-art call centre. The centre, which has already enabled the bank to start servicing Barclaycard customers and to reduce costs by removing dependence on a European call centre, will soon make possible extended hours banking services to customers across the country.
In the final months of 2006 the bank started offering a service where it comes to the customer. This might be most people’s nightmare but apparently staff visits to customers at work or home are proving surprisingly popular.
Such enhancements are already starting to improve services and have been supported by an increasingly reliable ATM network.