Keystone Bank has partnered Appzone, the financial services technology provider to present the industry-leading BankOne platform to a forum of microfinance banks in Kwara State, North-Central Nigeria.
This is in line with the bank’s vision to expand its bouquet of products tailored for microfinance institutions. For several years, the top brass of the Kwara State Association of Microfinance Banks has sought to transform the state’s fledgling microfinance sector by tackling challenges created by the level of technology adopted by most of its member firms.
Some of these problems include time consuming and error-prone manual operations, a lack of geographical spread and the inability to process cheque-based and electronic inter-bank transactions. BankOne was showcased as a technology platform that provides microfinance Banks with the capacity to implement end-to-end banking automation through multiple electronic and physical channels. The workshop highlighted BankOne’s ability to transform microfinance banks into efficient and integrated financial services firms without steep infrastructure costs.
Speakers from Keystone and AppZone lauded the “Cashless” initiatives being driven by the Central Bank and highlighted the fact that BankOne had created an effective channel for low and medium income customers of microfinance banks to be fully absorbed into the new “cash-lite” society. Raji Adegoke, AppZone’s Head of Business Development for BankOne MFB services said: “Customers of MFBs on BankOne can use debit cards at ATMs and POS’s nationwide as well as on the Internet. Customers also have their accounts linked to their mobile phones for the purposes of initiating Inter-Bank transfers and bill payments.”
Top management staff including chief executives of microfinance banks in the state, asked questions about BankOne platform and expressed keen interest in the potential benefits that could accrue. Representatives of Keystone Bank also introduced the bank’s in-branch correspondent service which gives BankOne’s subscribers access to the wide network of Keystone branches by allowing them make deposits or cash cheques without visiting their own microfinance institutions.
The in-branch correspondent banking service from Keystone leverages BankOne’s technology to enable single branch MFBs confined to localised regions harness the extensive reach of Keystone Bank to deliver branch-based services to customers across the nation.
The workshop which held on February 27 comes on the heels of Keystone Bank’s decision to sign onto BankOne as a partner on its platform.
