Standard Bank's move to introduce online banking to five additional African countries over the next two months, and another four by the end of the year, is part of a big self-service channel expansion by the bank.
Marius Wait, director of personal and business banking at Standard Bank Africa, declined to comment on the capital expenditure of expanding the banking online offering on the continent, but says it is part of the overall cost of the self-service channel expansion project. He says this amount will be "substantial" over a period of three to four years.
Currently, Standard Bank offers Internet banking in Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. It will be rolling-out these services in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe in the next two months. Later this year, Internet banking will also be deployed in Mauritius, Zambia and Ghana, says Wait.
Standard Bank's African online customers have exceeded the 11 000 mark, conducting R160 million worth of transactions a month. This is in contrast to SA, where the bank's online users number more than 600 000, says Wait. This, he says, is out of a total of 2.5 million online banking users in total in the country.
ATM roll-out
In Africa, he believes the growth potential is "enormous" as it is coming off a very low base amid strong economic performances across the continent, driving the need for individuals and businesses to have access to state-of-the-art online banking facilities and capabilities.
Online banking in Africa, he says, will be aimed at the upper-end of personal banking clients, while mobile and ATM banking will target lower-income clientele. Standard Bank currently offers no mobile banking services outside SA, and Wait says the roll-out of this will depend on the uptake trends seen in the rest of the developing world.
The self-service channel expansion project will also include the roll-out of ATMs in African countries, says Wait. There are currently 500 Standard Bank ATMs in Africa, and Wait expects to see a growth of 100 to 150 ATMs a year on the continent.
However, he says, this figure is open-ended as it will depend on Standard Bank's success in acquiring the CFC Group, in Kenya, and the IBTC Chartered Bank, in Nigeria.
The group is mindful of the challenges faced in Africa that include unstable power supply and communications, as well as the need to educate users to take advantage of the self-service offerings, Wait says.
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