A few years ago, reaching out to the unbanked in the society was not even an idea, as financial institutions could only reach out to a specific segment of the country due to lack of adequate infrastructure and technology. Products and services were centred on this few due to lack of innovation or technology to drive financial services to the other segment of the country.
Today, the reverse is the case. The high level of awareness built on financial inclusion by both the government and private sector has shifted the focus of the banks and the financial technology companies on the un-banked and under-banked in the society. The quest to innovate and develop services that will cater to the needs of this group people has made Fintech companies even more popular.
Technology is making it easier for financial service providers to provide services that are relevant, appropriate and affordable to the lower income segment of the country. Suffice to say, technology reduces cost and increases productivity in every sector of the economy including banking thereby creating an avenue for financial inclusion to thrive in societies.
AppZone is one of the leading fintech companies in Nigeria whose aim is to digitise the financial services industry. By going against the status quo of the brick and mortar system, AppZone continues to create technologies that will revolutionise the financial services industry. AppZone has two main products designed to help improve financial inclusion in the country. These products are BankOne and CreditClub.BankOne, an integrated Core Banking and E-channel software platform, was built by AppZone for the African environment.
The app is deployed centrally as a shared service on secure cloud infrastructure to manage operations and enable alternative service delivery channels for small retail Banks and Microfinance institutions.BankOne helps to reach out to the underbanked and unbanked in the community by digitising the financial services operations and also exposing them to multiple alternative channels such as ATMs, POS terminals, the Internet, Mobile phones and also independent agents.
This affordable state-of-the-art software development technology, along with innovative product concepts continues to deliver a platform that is tailored to meeting the needs of Microfinance and other target financial institutions.
Bankone’sCreditClub is a network of agents that use cloud-based solutions and portable devices to deliver Banking services to remote customers on behalf of financial institutions. CreditClub provides informal workers better and easier ways to save, withdraw and borrow money while expanding the scope and profitability of financial institutions within the informal sector.
The CreditClub platform provides financial institution’s customers with convenient exposure to financial service on a day-to-day basis via the agent network and its technology. Simply put, CreditClub legalises the trusted model already established by the informal financial providers (Ajoo and Esusu) to reach out to the Underbanked providing them with both the agent and the technology needed for transparency, security and access to loans. With the help of CreditClub, Un(der)banked in the society can now open an account, create and maintain a savings habit, and also get access to loans and other credit facilities available to them.
No wonder the Bank of Industry (BoI) appointed AppZone limited as aggregators for the Government Enterprise and Empowerment programme (GEEP). GEEP was designed to achieve financial inclusion by enabling access to credit for market women, artisans, women corporative societies, enterprising youths, agricultural workers, agro-allied processors and other MSME categories in other to attain poverty eradication, employment generation, growth and development of micro, small and medium scale enterprise throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria. AppZone has helped disbursed the first N140B.
AppZone continue to help the government promote financial inclusion through its digital technology and aims to revolutionise the financial services in Nigeria and Africa as a whole