Africa’s biggest lender by assets, Standard Bank is going full steam with branchless banking.

This after the bank announced today it has partnered with iiDENTIFii, a Cape Town-based technology company that enables remote biometric digital authentication and automated onboarding.

“By deploying the iiDENTIFii solution across the bank’s existing product and service offerings, Standard Bank is shifting to branchless banking and meeting customers’ demands for simple, secure and friction-free banking,” the bank says in a statement.

The bank has in recent months been shifting to branchless banking after closing over 100 branches this year.

However, this did not do down well with some customers leading to the bank apologising for the inconvenience.

Earlier this year, Standard Bank announced plans reconfigure its branch infrastructure.

At the time the bank said: “We have to leverage the strategic IT assets we have, accelerate our product development and digitise our execution processes. This will require a reallocation of resources from our physical to our digital channels and a concomitant reconfiguration of our branch infrastructure.”

Standard Bank said customers continue to migrate to its digital banking platforms with mobile transaction values increasing 44% to R262 billion and transaction volumes increased to R2.5 million a day for the year-ended December 2018.

The bank’s spokesperson, Ross Linstrom, recently told ITWeb that: “Customers have continued to migrate to digital platforms, in particular, the SBG mobile app. Digital transaction volumes increased 26%, whilst face-to-face volumes declined 13% year on year,” Linstrom said.

Now, Funeka Montjane, the bank’s chief executive for personal and business banking, believes that mobile is the new branch.

“Working with iiDENTIFii, we can onboard new customers securely in under 60 seconds. This empowers the bank to bring its various offerings in line with the fourth industrial revolution, and become a leader in branchless banking.”

With increased uptake of its digital products, Standard Bank says security, trust and exceptional customer service are the cornerstone its relationship with customers.

Lance Fanaroff, a director of iiDENTIFii, says the new solution being offered by the bank is able to verify identities with both speed and accuracy.

“This solution is not just about the technology. Given the increasing stringency of data privacy regulations…iiDENTIFii brings customers in line with global data compliance.”