Big-four bank Absa is planning additional tech-enhanced services for its ‘Branch on the Move’ units, including activating facial biometrics functionality.
This was revealed by the bank’s officials in a recent interview with ITWeb.
Pierre Bornman, head of alternative channels within physical channels, a division of Absa Everyday Banking, says this is part of the future journey of the mobile service unit and creating alternatives for the future.
Aston McDonald, CIO within physical channels at Absa Everyday Banking, wouldn’t divulge many details, but confirmed the bank is working to bring additional technology into the units.
“We’ve done quite well to get to produce the self-service kiosk capability, coupled with our external sales competency within the 10 square metre environment – we’ve gone miles ahead in terms of laying down the prerequisite technology for that space.
“Without having to spill the beans on it, but when you look at the cash-heavy society, we’re looking at ways to improve our cash recycling capabilities on those devices in that environment.
“We also want to understand from a digital adoption perspective, how we create a light-touch solution for our external sales and call them digital champions, to help migrate our customer base onto our more digital-enabled channels.”
Problem-centric solutions
Absa conceptualised Branch on the Move during the July 2021 civil unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, as a way to complement its existing branch network and digital banking channels, says the bank’s Reyhana Satar.
According to Satar, head: infrastructure, optimisation and placement within physical channels at Absa Everyday Banking, there was a vast amount of people that had no access to banking, and therefore the bank needed to bridge the gap for its customers.
The services provided in these units include personalised self-service account opening via specialised machines, account enquiries, cash withdrawals and lending solutions. Additionally, the units are equipped with WiFi and operate off-the-grid, as they are equipped with solar panels and generators.
The unit is a full service branch that is movable – it's basically on a trailer, she explains. “We were able to bridge the gap of full service banking to customers and honour where we could in the climate. For example, SASSA payments within the branches were down, etc.
“This was a way for us to reach customers in a way that we could not before and go to remote places and to potentially even make it [banking] more inclusive and more accessible.
“It's given us the ability to do a whole [lot] more in the landscape of what the trailer can do. We can take it into rural areas, we can service the unbanked in ways that we couldn't before, without having to go through the full cycle of cost of building fixed branches in the process, and explore those territories and have further reach for the bank.”
For Bornman, the “high-tech” unit brings the best of the branch: self-service banking and also digital banking. “It's really for all customers, whether they need a face-to-face service, or whether they are comfortable to do transactions via the self-service option,” he explains.
Among the key features of the self-service kiosks is the fingerprint verification, which Bornman says is via the Department of Home Affairs’ systems. The unit also has a facial biometrics function that’s still to be activated.
“There’s no documentation required on this…everything is digital, your contracts are signed on the touch-screen with a digital pen and then e-mailed to the customers. We've got printing capabilities, if you wish to print. It also features full security from a data privacy perspective − we've exposed it to external testing to make sure our customers are safe in using this.
“We've also got proximity detectors on our self-service kiosks, which means that while there are no customers close to the kiosk, it goes into hibernate mode so we don't use unnecessary power.”
At the time of the interview, Satar revealed the bank had four Branch on the Move units deployed, with an additional three being manufactured.
“We have two others that we are putting on vehicles,” she states. “A full-service branch on a vehicle and the way we will use it is based on the duration of time that the units need to be at a particular place.
“For events, we have the vehicles because there's a little establishment that's required. For longer uses where we are trying to close gaps or create a presence, we've got about seven trailers that are in the mix for us to be able to utilise.”
Smarter option
As to if the brick-and-mortar bank branch has a future, Satar states that for high-value conversations, people still want to have face-to-face interaction.
In addition, considering Absa’s different customer profiles, she highlights that not everybody is going to be on digital and not everybody has a smartphone.
For SASSA payments, for instance, people still want their cash, Satar notes.
“The high-value conversations are definitely areas of trust. A bank is still seen in those lenses, that you need to see somebody eye-to-eye. I think we’re still a little way off where we transact just purely digitally and we are seeing the fintech disruptors in that space, but it’s to a segment and not to everybody.
“We must be realistic about that journey that we’re on and we can’t leave our customers behind while we’re innovating at that level as well. There’s a whole segment that still wants to talk to us and we want to give that presence.”
She points out the bank is fortunate to have an entire infrastructure in which it can create optimised branch footprints that are smarter but leaner.
Bornman adds: “I think that's key to being labelled an all-inclusive bank. You do need to provide different channels, with different products and different demographic customers.”
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