Ecobank Transnational’s sheer weight of presence – it delivers banking services to 32 million people in 33 sub-Saharan African countries – could have been a hindrance, a geographical burden. Instead, it transformed into a positive, and the bank has done so in large part by drawing up an impressively coherent digital strategy.
Its One Bank model allows it to manufacture services and products centrally then distribute them across the region. Standardization like this allows it to build new services, bolt them on, then update or modify them for pan-African use. The bank reckons this approach provides it with “a significant comparative and scalable advantage” over its competitors.
As is the case with all the best banks, Covid acted as a digital accelerant. Ecobank busied itself unveiling new ideas and products. Customers flocked to it, attracted by its digital ease of use. The value of transactions leapt sharply in 2021 over 2020, including through its Ecobank Mobile (up 51%), Ecobank Online (73%) and Xpress (103%) digital platforms.
Ecobank’s Xpress service is in turn divided into three platforms. Xpress Cash lets account holders digitally create tokens to send electronically to others, allowing them to withdraw cash without a card at an ATM. Express Account touts itself as a “truly mobile account for the mobile generation” that can be opened directly from a mobile phone. It is all part of a plan to, in the bank’s words, become “the next generation of neobanks for Africa.” Then there’s Xpress Loan, specializing in disbursing micro-sized loans to smaller enterprises.
The bank also continued to innovate, rolling out new or updated versions of services including RapidTransfer, EcobankPay QR, OmniPlus and an e-government payment and collections solution for public-sector firms. Its sandbox enables African fintechs to access its application programming interfaces, allowing them to develop innovative ideas that can be scaled up and rolled out across its network. Ecobank sees this as a milestone in its open banking strategy.
What stands out most is the bank’s willingness to focus on until recently hard-to-disrupt areas of banking. Ecobank has invested more than $10 million in digital trade-finance solutions. One of them is Eximbills, an open account trade and supply-chain finance payments solution. Another is Etrade, which lets clients settle local and international trade transactions from their home or office. In 2021, Ecobank processed trade transactions worth $845 million on Etrade, against $529 million the previous year.
The bank’s eFSC electronic financial supply-chain platform creates a single ecosystem, populated by corporates, their suppliers and Ecobank itself, optimizing working capital and offering ease of visibility across the supply chain. Another notable success is Bank Collect. Ecobank’s digital collections platform lets corporates monitor transactions online in real time, helping them to grow sales and attract new customers. The value of transactions passing across the platform grew 46% year on year in 2021 to $4.95 billion.
We will continue to embrace cutting-edge digital technologies and innovations to deliver relevant digital solutions and the best experience for our customers
Nvalaye Kourouma
Its OmniLite internet banking service helps clients efficiently manage cash-flow cycles and instantly process and record collections and payments. The value of transactions processed on the platform rose 24% year on year in 2021 to $4.8 billion and via RapidTransfer (a service focused on cross-border remittances) by 44% to $3.2 billion.
“We provide state-of-the-art digital products, functionality and solutions to meet the evolving needs of our consumer, commercial, corporate and investment banking customers. We will continue to embrace cutting-edge digital technologies and innovations to deliver relevant digital solutions and the best experience for our customers,” says group chief digital officer Nvalaye Kourouma.
“This Euromoney award is yet another confirmation of the success of Ecobank group’s digital strategy.”
