The Managing Director/CEO, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nnamdi Okonkwo, has given insights on how the bank has effectively simplified banking digitization to accommodate customers that are yet to access stmartphones.
In his address at the recent Annual General Meeting (AGM), he explained that “We have taken into cognizance, customers who may not have data to do their transactions, so we introduced our USSD *770#, which does not require you to have smartphone or data to carry out some banking transactions.”
According to him, “This category of customers does not need android phones to operate their accounts, just basic phones. This has made our cost-to-income ratio to improve significantly.
On the salutary financials of the bank which he said is looking up, Okonkwo averred that “Our cost-to-income ratio is likely to drop by about 50 percent by 2022. Digitisation will play a key role in achieving this.”
While agreeing that “IT comes with a lot of risks,” he cautioned that “Any bank that does not pay attention to cyber risks is living dangerously and I doubt if any bank will even try that.”
“Statistics have also shown us that even in some of the areas of the north with security challenges, we have very high adoption of electronic banking, because people are sending and receiving money using their phones. What is a challenge actually leads to innovation and opportunity.
