Banker and Regulator Agree Chat Commerce can Radically Shift Financial Inclusion in Nigeria

Banker and Regulator Agree Chat Commerce can Radically Shift Financial Inclusion in Nigeria

Clickatell (www.Clickatell.com), the Chat Commerce and business messaging leader, discussed with attendees at Clickatell’s Connect Interact and Transact (CIT) annual event earlier this month how they could drive financial inclusion and reach their revenue goals by adopting Chat Commerce. The event took place at the Radisson Blu, Anchorage in Lagos with industry experts from Clickatell, Ecobank and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sharing insight and tips with an audience of business and technology leaders.

 

Werner Lindemann, Clickatell’s Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Growth Markets, kicked off by pointing out how global brands, like Amazon and Uber, have built their entire business model on convenience commerce – where businesses find ways to deliver services and products to their customers wherever they are and at a time that works for them.

Lindemann went on to share that the best way to reach customers where they are is on their phone. However, he said apps have a very limited shelf life, saying the average customer regularly uses just five apps on their phone. He advised instead of focusing on building apps, brands should be looking to leverage the power of chat, especially since WhatsApp is the most used (https://bit.ly/3Nab6Q1) social media platform in Nigeria. What’s more, when combined with USSD, companies will be able to reach almost every person in the country.

The power of Chat Commerce is especially relevant for the Nigerian banking industry and Lindemann shared that banks can now onboard new clients and conduct Know Your Customer (KYC) standards using chat, meaning banks can serve customers anywhere in the country, in real time.

Lindemann shared other use cases where Clickatell had radically changed how Southern African businesses engaged with their customers, these included:

  • How a national retailer was able to cut their broadsheet print production and distribution from 5 Dollars to just 3 cents
  • How that retailer now has a 40% to 70% engagement rate on their product specials using WhatsApp, compared to 3% on SMS
  • How a national retailer now uses WhatsApp to enable self-service for their loyalty programme and has eliminated more than 20 000 call centre calls per month to block or replace loyalty cards
  • How a national healthcare chain now allows customers to order and arrange collection of their chronic medication at their nearest outlet, no matter where they are in the country
  • How a Southern African low-cost airline allows travellers to check in and receive their boarding pass on the WhatsApp channel

 

People are already on these chat platforms, and we aim to serve them with payments where they are

An engaging panel discussion followed the keynote, introduced by Clickatell’s West Africa Managing Director, Samson Isa and facilitated by Uzo Nwani, Commercial Director of Clickatell.

Opening the discussion, panelists highlighted how their organization had used technology to boost inclusivity. For CBN, this was achieved by its introduction of the eNaira digital currency. For Ecobank, its move to offer a WhatsApp channel allowed them to reach their customers more easily. And for Clickatell, it has been the company’s drive to help banks in Africa improve their reach by moving to the more ubiquitous chat channel.

“One out of three Nigerians are financially excluded. Therefore the work we have done with Clickatell on the eNaira USSD channel is so exciting. We are also looking to the eNaira to lower the costs of remittances as well as bring down the high costs of cash management. We believe the eNaira will drive inclusive growth and make the Central Bank, as an institution, much more effective in carrying out its mandate,” said Stephen Ambore, Assistant Director, CBN.

Osahon Akpata, Group Head of Consumer Payments at Ecobank shared the power of mobile with the audience.

“Across 33 countries, Ecobank Group processed $5.1 billion through our mobile app in 2021 and we built an agency banking network of 110,000 agents, leveraging the ubiquity of mobile devices. While Chat Commerce is still in its infancy for us, we are scaling up the platform for better customer service. We have integrated artificial intelligence into our chatbot, Rafiki, to help solve customer queries quicker and seamlessly. We also have customers using the chat channel for transactions and we plan on expanding its use to product information as well. People are already on these chat platforms, and we aim to serve them with payments where they are,” he said.

Akpata went on to share that being able to generate QR codes on the WhatsApp channel, make transfers and buy airtime have all been met with great enthusiasm by Ecobank customers, adding that chat will be a key part of the bank’s drive to reach its target of 100 million customers.

CBN will also be looking to chat to connect with people in Nigeria further in the future.

“We are looking at chat to help us deliver financial literacy and boost inclusion. When it comes to innovation, chat, including USSD, can help us reach new customers and I am excited about the future opportunities, especially at the base of the pyramid,” said Ambore.

Lindemann wrapped up the proceedings by saying: “We’ve just kicked off a project with a major bank with around 15 million active customers, and we will be building them a chat banking wallet in just six weeks. In my opinion, chat is allowing us to fast-forward innovation for enterprises. I believe every enterprise has a responsibility to deploy products that have a real impact on their customer and society, and to see this happen in six weeks is testament to the power of chat.”

ONE THING WE HAVE DONE RIGHT IN NOWNOW IS TO GATHER EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONALS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD – OYENIKE OWOMOYELA

ONE THING WE HAVE DONE RIGHT IN NOWNOW IS TO GATHER EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONALS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD – OYENIKE OWOMOYELA

 

 

 

In this interview with the top executive of NowNowDigital Systems  Limited, Oyenike Owomoyela who is the Head of Growth at NowNow, a financial technology (FinTech) firm based in Lagos. She talks about their strides in the fintech ecosystem such as the launch of their debit cards and virtual cards for their customers. She spoke of the impact the apex bank; the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has made in the sector and how thy have made their API available for fintechs to use. Anthony Nwosu captured this in this exclusive interview. Oyenike is an expert in Financial Inclusion, Mass Retail & Youth Banking, digital sales products and loans, SME, process improvement and innovations to increase digital adoption by customers for seamless customer onboarding and retention via USSD, APS and Web.

 

Tell us the mission behind NowNow as a fintech firm?  

Our mission as a leading African B2B and B2C FinTech company is to deliver best in class financial services to SMEs, Agents and Consumers alike. We have a passion to deepen financial inclusion and provide job opportunities to the unemployed youths in Nigeria. We are a mobile bank that gives you control over how you spend your money. Be the Boss when you send money, receive money and pay bills for everyday essentials such as recharge card and data, insurance, electricity, shop online and instore-all in one place!

What informed the name NowNow?

We wanted to resonate first with one of the country’s local languages; Nigerian Pidgin English, what NowNow means in pidgin is to make haste or get something done instantly. The name also connotes that we are a fast-paced technology company that offers efficient services with speed! Our mission is to be a leading African B2B and B2C FinTech company whose mission is to deliver best in class financial services to SMEs, Agents and Consumers alike. We are building the world’s best technology that digitizes cash payments and provides financial empowerment for a better life for everyone.

Your slogan is “The New Way to Bank”, how has the journey been over these years?

We wanted to play on the double words ‘NowNow’ hence the slogan. Also, we realized there were a lot of negative sentiments with brick-and-mortar banks which included crowded banking halls, non-presence of bank branches at remote locations, slow response to customer complaints and resolution of issues. We wanted consumers to believe there is a new digital bank that will ensure they have control over their finances 24/7. Our customers resonate with the New way to bank and we have seen a steady increase in the adoption of our products and services.

Nigerian Fintech ecosystem can be said to be pretty busy, maybe one of the busiest in the continent, what are the unique things that set you apart from other players?

One thing we have done right in NowNow is to gather experienced professionals from across the world in the FinTech and Financial Services space hence we have a global view of what we need to do to achieve our goals as an organization. We are also focused on agile and adaptive technology and have a presence not only in the urban centers but rural communities also. We offer financial literacy tools as well as business solutions to all our consumers and merchants as a whole and have empowered a lot of youths and the unemployed through our agency banking model.

Opening an account in minutes is one of your selling points, how and what are you doing to ensure compliance with CBN regulation in the area of KYC?

Absolutely, this has been one of our major achievements; fast and seamless onboarding. What we have also done is to leverage API integrations with NIBSS and other 3rd party providers to ensure that we are opening quality wallets and profiling customers in line with the CBN 3-tiered KYC policy. Our Compliance team is also doing a lot at the backend to ensure transaction monitoring takes effect and processes related to KYC upgrades are done as at when due digitally. We also carry our EDD on transactions when the need arises.

How many downloads are we, looking at present from Nigerians?

We are aspirational when it comes to our consumer app, hence, we are on track to hit more than 1 million downloads by the end of the year. Yes, we know our competitors have well over that amount but what is paramount to us is not just the downloads but retaining those users to be loyal consumers for the long haul. Here we strongly believe in offering world calls financial services to people. We might not have millions of downloads yet but we are looking at offering seamless services to many people and these people will be with us on a long haul.

What is your market share in Nigeria, and do you have footprints in other African countries?

We think of ourselves as an embedded finance business, no longer a start-up. With that being said, it is part of our mission statement to have digital footprints all over Africa and really make a difference wherever we go. However, more information will be unveiled as we commence operations in more countries in the near future. We are looking seriously at the sub-Saharan fintech market. We have the expertise and the traction.

Some of the online banks do give debit cards, have you ever thought of that?

We recently had a soft launch phase of our Naira debit Mastercard in early August 2022 and we already have over 2000 active cards. We also have a virtual card which most of our consumers currently use for online transactions. So, we can say that we are abreast with the technology trends in the country. We do give out cards for those that love using cards but our strength also is in cardless transactions.

Do you think that the CBN is creating the enabling environments for fintech like yours to thrive?

In affirmative, the Apex bank created licenses that FinTechs can explore for financial services businesses all through. CBN believes that FinTechs are key actors in achieving National Financial Inclusion goals with Technology, Innovation, Speed and Scale. They also created a sandbox environment for product testing and innovation.

What are the challenges that you face in this business?

There are various challenges but I will mention the items that have the most impact: The rapid changes in macroeconomic landscape and terrain, upsurge and threats of competitors in various shapes and forms, shortages of skilled human capital, infrastructure not supporting scale i.e. internet penetration and switching infrastructure, insecurity and lastly, lower margins and ROE inhibiting access to capital (equity or debt).

What do we expect from NowNow this latter part of the year?

A few things! Firstly, our card campaign, which is aimed at our B2C customer segment – a project that we have been working on extensively for quite some time. We also have a new product launch to tackle the SME segment in Nigeria, which has one of the largest footprints of SMEs in Africa. We want to empower this segment by creating a digital platform that moves them from offline to online, provides access to market channels as well as financial capabilities, and ERP solutions. All these and many more are in the pipeline to really propell business owners to the next level of exposure and success. We will begin to roll out these products as we progress.

 

“One thing we have done right in NowNow is to gather experienced professionals from across the world in the FinTech and Financial Services space hence we have a global view of what we need to do to achieve our goals as an organization. We are also focused on agile and adaptive technology and have a presence not only in the urban centers but rural communities also.”