The technology driven Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank Plc., Mr. Uzoma Dozie has opened up on why the bank is currently giving its peers mileage in trending technology and service delivery.
In an interview, he said “First of all, technology has done much good to us as an institution. We are paperless and unless we have to write to CBN to sign a document we don’t need papers. Technology plays so many roles in the sense that we don’t have to be in our offices, we can stay at home and work. I don’t have to be physically here for meetings, I can just do it through a tele video call via skype.
“We are paperless because security of information in Diamond Bank is safer as it gives us security. For the customers, Diamond Bank opened nine million accounts in two years and those were opened by customers themselves on their phones.
According to Dozie, “This is cost-effective as they did not have to spend money to come to the bank to open their accounts and the bank did not even have to get nine million forms. With three million activities in a month, 85 per cent of them are actually done through the phone, one of the biggest benefits of technology is its security”.
However, he said “Despite the increase in diesel, inflation, petrol price and devaluation of the currency in 2017, through technology we increased the number of people working in Diamond Bank. For direct sales and better proposition, we had 2000 people employed (contract staff) so we are adding more jobs to the market.
Explaining more on driving principles of the bank, he averred that “If we had not done the financial inclusion on providing services, then we don’t need many full time employees so we are still employing people because there are more jobs to be created. Once you create opportunities in the real economy, there are people you have to show how to do those things. Another thing technology has done is to increase customers’ experience because they can do more”.
On why the bank is investing technology and ‘Tech-Fest’, the Diamond Bank boss revealed that “The Tech-fest is still going to hold this year. We are looking at the month of April 2018. Why it wasn’t held in January is that we wanted more time to get more activities that will be more beneficial to all the partners involved”.
