WhatsApp No Longer A Social-Media Focused Platform- These African Banks Have Introduced WhatsApp Banking Services

Millennials use social media continually throughout the day. Most of them use the platform to record and share fun videos and memes as well as connect with people, mostly their peers. For this group of people, social media platforms are a very important and crucial part of their lives. 

Every time you open your WhatsApp app, you will find many status updates and more likely, you will find Millenials with more than one status update. And now, banks are stepping up to leverage the heavy WhatsApp usage to create more convenient ways they can use to serve their clients.

In a bid to ease bank transactions mostly for the millennial group, ZB Financial Holdings group, a Zambian bank has introduced WhatsApp banking services.

“We noticed that a lot of the millennials are always on social media and it is obviously very frustrating for you if you want to perform a transaction to come out of your social media and then you perform a transaction and go back to your social media. With WhatsApp banking you are able to conduct your banking services while you are within Whatsapp,” said the Group CEO Ronald Mutandagayi while speaking at a Press luncheon recently.

The bank signed a money transfer agreement with Ria Money Transfer a US platform that specializes in money remittance. 

“We have signed a money agreement with an American firm called Ria. This is the first time any local financial institution has had a direct relationship with an American money transfer business. We are excited about that because it means that our diaspora in America will have a direct route for remitting funds to Zimbabwe,” Mutandagayi said.

Housing Finance, a Kenyan commercial bank offering integrated solutions for real estate development, mortgage loan, property insurance recently launched WhatsApp banking solution that offers customized mobile services to its customers. It became the second African company to unveil Whatsapp Services after Nigeria’s First Bank.

Nigeria’s First Bank also launched their Chat Banking channel on WhatsApp in November 2018 enabling customers to run their banking transactions within their WhatsApp chat with the same capableness as USSD. 

In an attempt to keep up with the ever-advancing digital banking revolution, ACCESS Bank Zambia Limited also unveiled Access WhatsApp Banking.

“Access Bank Zambia is bringing banking closer to its growing customer base by leveraging on the WhatsApp application. We look forward to seeing more of our customers enjoy the seamless experience of chatting with their bank,” Access Bank Zambia’s head of E-business Alfred Ackon said earlier.

With Whatsapp banking services, customers are able to pay bills, check balance, transfer money, purchase products online, buy airtime and do much more while still chatting with friends.

As technology advances apace, financial institutions are continuously becoming more customer-centric. Through technology, banks continue to innovate and provide more convenient and faster banking options for their customers. 

Featured Image Courtesy: Dignited