Efforts to bring financial services closer to millions of Nigerians and businesses that lack access has received a major boost as United Bank for Nigeria (UBA) and Google, on Wednesday, kicked off free WiFi services in eleven branches.
The Google Station project is part of Google’s Next Billion User mission – a plan to enable at least a billion people in the world get access to the internet. In Nigeria, Google has set a target of 200 locations across the country before the end of 2019.
“We believe very much in the power that access to information provides everyone,” Juliet Ehimuan, country manager Google Nigeria said during the unveiling of the Google Station WiFi at the UBA head office in Marina, Lagos.
The 11 branches which are all in Lagos include Bank Road, Marina, Matori Fatai Ateri, Lekki Admiralty, Ogunlana Drive Surulere, Warehouse Road Apapa, Allen Avenue, Tisco Plaza, Aspamda Plaza, and Oke Arin.
Dupe Olusola, group head Marketing, UBA disclosed that the goal is to extend the services to the bank’s more than 500 branches across the country and 20 locations across Africa.
“UBA is focused on providing uninterrupted quality customer service experience which is one of the major reasons for this partnership with Google Station,” Olusola said. “This will go a long way to help students and SMEs to engage their business with ease.
The Google Station provides significant benefits to both UBA customers and people within the location of the WiFi.
Apart from removing the cost of internet access for customers that walk into any of the eleven branches, thereby ensuring that they carry out their transaction without stress and the convenience it gives small businesses around the vicinity of the WiFi to carry out their digital transactions, there is also the ability it give to people who for some financial reasons have not been able to use the internet.
Chukwuma Nweke, executive director of UBA said it will enable the bank push its digital offerings to a lot more people and ensure they have access to the right information concerning the bank’s services.
“There are so many small businesses unable to do their accounting processes online, now they can sit at Oke Arin and do it at no cost,” Nweke said.
Saidu Abdulahi, head of partnerships, Next Billion Users, sub-Saharan Africa, said the users will only need to log in once in a location. In other words, should a user log in at Marina, he or she would not need to do so at Lekki Admiralty.
He also assured that Google takes issues around user security and privacy online very seriously. Hence the Google Station has built-in security that ensures that data breaches are a rarity.
