Category: Money

By Collins Nweze

 

WorldRemit, a global digital payments company, has launched WorldRemit Transfer Tracker mobile App for recipients of money transfers which allows them to track their remittances.

The WorldRemit Transfer Tracker App is available through the Google app store in Nigeria, India, Mexico and Colombia. It will also be free to download through the app store in 90 countries in iOS and Android later this month.

Consumer research shows that financial insecurity is at an all-time high. WorldRemit is working to increase transparency and support users by providing easy access to financial services.

With WorldRemit’s proprietary technology, each user can track the money they have been sent, giving them added peace of mind at a time when they need it most.

Chief Product Officer WorldRemit, Stephen Lovell, said: “Whenever I have the chance to speak to our customers, they always remind me of the three reasons they choose our service – convenience, speed and safety. I’m delighted that we have launched a service exclusively for our customers who receive money from their family and friends.’’

Read Also: SEC unveils regulatory framework for digital assets

 

“Through developing the Transfer Tracker App, we hope to empower recipients of money transfers so that they can access their funds as conveniently and as safely as possible. This remains a guiding principle for us as we continue to provide an inclusive end-to-end money transfer service.”

The Transfer Tracker App has a “track my money” feature, which allows recipients to see exactly where their funds are in real time for added peace of mind. According to the 2017 World Bank Global Findex database, there are 1.7 billion adults across the world who do not have a bank account, nor do they have an account with a mobile money provider. The majority of financially excluded people tend to live in rural areas or places with limited access to reliable transportation, which often means having to make long journeys into city centres. For those who rely on financial support from loved ones abroad, visiting cash pick up agents is often the only option available to them.

 

By Collins Nweze

 

Financial literacy and enlightenment remain crucial in getting more people to embrace financial services, Chairman, Financial Literacy and Public Enlightenment Sub-Committee, Bankers Committee,  Emeka Emuwa has said.

He also advised Nigerians to be cautious as  fraudsters and scammers devise new ways to deceive the public.

He said the fraudsters usually to lure their victims to disclose confidential bank information.

Emuwa spoke when Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bankers’ Committee of Nigeria launched a cybersecurity & fraud awareness campaign, called ‘Moni Sense’.

Read Also: Buhari to CBN: don’t release money for food, fertiliser import

 

Emuwa said: “We encourage Nigerians to always be cautious and ignore any text message, phone call, or email asking to update your bank information, provide sensitive bank details, disclose online banking details, debit card numbers, bank verification number (BVN) or PIN to anyone.”

He added that financial literacy and public enlightenment are critical pillars of the Bankers’ Committee mandate, making initiatives like Moni Sense this essential to the goal of increasing the number of financially included citizens in the country.

Emuwa stated that the aim of the  CBN and the Bankers’ Committee of Nigeria is to ensure Nigerians are empowered with critical information and knowledge necessary to make important financial decisions, enhance economic prosperity, stay fraud aware and cyber safe in order to drive poverty reduction across the country.

He advised Nigerians  to be more security conscious in their financial and banking activities so as not to fall victim to fraud and other forms of cybercrime.

 

By Collins Nweze

 

The ChiefExecutive Officer, FirstBank of Nigeria Limited, Adesola Adeduntan, has asked senior managers of the bank to motivate the workforce and drive resources that would enable the lender realise its goals.

He spoke during the bank’s third virtual Senior Management Development Programme (SMDP).

The programme was meant to create a pipeline of people that are ready to take up increasing responsibilities of delivering the bank’s objectives.

The bank graduated 12 participants in its SMDP to enhance their leadership and strategic business skills for sustainable growth in the banking sector.

Adeduntan said: “At the senior management level, your ability to motivate your subordinate, coordinate and mobilise resources will be critical to the success of the bank. This training is to enable us mobilise staff to line up all the transformation agenda of the bank and realise its objectives.”

When he took over the leadership of the bank in 2016, he said he planned to create future leaders that would from within, lead the bank to realise its vision.

The bank chief also wanted to reduce the import of talents at the very senior level, adding that the graduands had all it takes to contribute to the growth of the bank.

Read Also: FirstBank: Deepening financial inclusion with Fintech partnership

 

Group Head, Marketing and Corporate Communications, FirstBank, Mrs Folake Ani-Mumuney, said SMDP is FirstBank’s modular programme for a select senior  and principal managers identified as central to the bank’s succession plan.

Ani-Mumuney said earlier, 40 staff members had participated in the SMD.

Mrs Omobolanle Adesola,  said the SMDP was an enabler and a call to serve.

Adesola urged the graduates to uphold integrity and commit to the progress and excellence of FirstBank and the entire banking sector, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic had made the banking terrain challenging, according to Ani-Mumuney.

Chairman, First Academy Governing Council,  Ini Ebong, said the graduates had been equipped with skills to actualise their potential and boost their leadership quality.

 

By Collins Nweze

Unity Bank Plc’s earnings of N1.3 billion through electronic banking channels in first half of 2020 has placed the lender among the top 10 highest earners in Nigeria. This was according to a research report released recently.

The bank’s performance is not unconnected with its aggressive push in digital banking in recent years as it spearheaded the launch of several cutting-edge digital baking solutions including a youth-focused mobile banking solution called UniFi and a robust internet banking platform.

Recall that earlier this year, the lender also launched multi-lingual USSD banking, the first in Nigeria’s banking industry. These gains come on the back of aggressive reforms embarked on by the bank over the past three years which saw the Bank returning to a profit position in 2019 when it recorded a N4.061 billion gross profit.

Read Also: Unity Bank’s half-year gross earnings hit N22.8b

The Bank continued its impressive performance in 2020 as it declared gross earnings of N22.8 billion in the period between January and June 2020.

According to the retail lender’s unaudited financials submitted to the Nigeria Stock Exchange, the half-year gross earnings rose 11 per cent to N22.865 billion from N20.547 billion in the corresponding period of 2019. Profit Before Tax, PBT grew by 7 per cent from N1.051 billion in half-year 2019 to N1.120 billion in the period under review. This is even as the Profit After Tax, PAT, equally rose by seven per cent to N1.030 billion from N967.514 million in the corresponding period of 2019.

A further review of the H1 financial statement showed that the agribusiness-focused lender grew its deposit by 19 per cent to N306.472 billion from N257.691 billion as at December 2019. It’s total operating income also grew by 14 per cent to N12.138 billion from N10.688 billion in the same period in 2019.

By Collins Nweze

Global peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, Paxful has plans to strengthen operations in Nigeria with a physical presence in Lagos which will be manned by employees dedicated to the Nigerian market. The country is the company’s leading market in terms of volume and number of users.

On their expansion in Nigeria, Tugba Abadan, Head of Africa & Middle East for Paxful said, “Our decision to expand operations in Nigeria enables us to listen to our users more carefully and to continually ensure that their concerns are addressed.”

The company has already appointed a Regional Manager for Nigeria while other positions are being filled. Nena Nwachukwu, Nigeria Regional Manager for Paxful, is an expert in the Bitcoin industry with nearly a decade of experience in the field. She will be responsible for managing business operations, strategic partnerships, improving awareness, and creating educational content for the business.

In addition, Abadan said, “We’re excited to appoint a Regional Manager to take charge of the operations in Nigeria. This does not only allows us to actively look for local FinTech partners to work with, but also creates better accessibility for users and execute our plans for the market effectively.”

Additionally, the company will be putting extra efforts into educating the market about the opportunities that Crypto presents through conferences and the Paxful Peer Program, Nwachukwu said, “We have several sponsorships planned. To start, we are the premium sponsor of the forthcoming BLOCKDeFi-2020 conference, a fully virtual live conference slated for September 12th and 13th, 2020. Paxful’s co-founder and CPO Artur Schaback, and myself will be speaking at the conference.”

Paxful began operations in 2015 and is an escrow service, marketplace, and digital wallet in one. The company facilitates the sharing economy and frictionless cryptocurrency commerce, enabling users to buy and sell bitcoin via more than 300 different payment methods, including gift cards, cash deposits, online wallets, debit and credit cards.

Gone are the days when banking was boring and simple transactions took a day to one week or two to complete. With digital banking, commercial banks are finding new ways of providing efficient services and reaching the unbanked. The FirstBank’s FinTech Summit 4.0 virtual conference in Lagos presented an opportunity for experts, policy influencers and regulatory officials in the financial, banking and technological sectors to discuss the gains of bank-Fintech partnership in promoting financial inclusion, writes COLLINS NWEZE.

BANKS are also deepening their footprints on the sand of digital banking through partnerships and increased investment in technology.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commercial banks have also recognised the need to collaborate with fintechs to bring banking closer to the people. There is also the increased need to get more bank customers to embrace digital banking.

The CBN has also, in line with its National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS), included the fintechs in its targeted agencies to achieve 80 per cent of its objective by this year, from about 64 per cent.

Hence, the need for banks and Financial Technology (FinTech) firms to deepen the banking sector through better product and service offerings was a major highlight at the FirstBank FinTech Summit 4.0 virtual conference in Lagos.

FirstBank, a leading Tier-1 bank, also provided an opportunity for regulators, banks and fintech firms to discuss the way forward for digital payments and financial inclusion, while looking for areas of collaboration.

The event with the theme: “How blockchain and Artificial Intelligence will disrupt FinTech in Nigeria”, was an opportunity to get knotty issues around digital payment resolved and discuss opportunities digital payment presents to the financial sector and economy. The event was the fourth.

Deputy Managing Director, FirstBank of Nigeria Limited, Gbenga Shobo said: “At FirstBank, we have been at the forefront of employing technology in the delivery of financial services in the country exemplified by our various products and services such as FirstMobile, USSD Banking services, FirstMonie Wallet, FirstMonie Agent Banking, FirstAdvance loans provisions.

“The 2020 edition of our fintech summit was built on the successes achieved in the last three editions. We welcome the panelists as we look forward to the shared knowledge, which will be integral to deepening the continued growth of banking technology, especially its impact on the Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria and the continent at large.’’

Shobo said the summit leveraged the successes achieved in the past editions. He said it was opportunity to share knowledge, which would be integral to deepening the growth of banking technology, especially its impact on the nation’s GDP and that of the continent.

“Technology continues to play a fundamental role in driving financial inclusion and strengthening the growth of SMEs that contribute significantly to the development of the country. We encourage members of the public, players in the fintech and financial climate to register, as there is knowledge for everyone,” he added.

CBN Director, Payment System Management, Musa Jimoh said the apex bank was implementing its open banking regime policy that would require banks to open their account base to fintechs to bring more people into the system.

He said such data exchange would also increase access to financial services and provide better services to customers. He said the directive was in line with the apex bank’s five- year vision and open banking regime policy.

Jimoh described fintechs as technology-enabled innovation in financial services that could result in new business models, applications, processes or products with an effect on financial services.

Fintech firms like Quick-teller, MoniDey, Baxi, PocketMoni, Unified Payments, Paga, and Cellulant, are helping consumers in bill payments, retail payments, airtime purchases and use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transactions. They also collect payments – whether from the banked or not.

Read Also: FirstBank Partners UN1TY Nigeria, Promotes Growth of Nigerian music with Voice Voice Nigeria Season 3

Jimoh said the CBN is also boosting the use of artificial intelligence in banking, and promoting digital payment access. ”We have also released the quick response -QR Code framework, which is expected to help drive the ecosystem, and provide a central database that will promote financial inclusion,” he said.

Also, Group Executive, e-Business & Retail Products, Chuma Ezirim, said: ”We work closely with fintechs, and our relationship with them is mutually beneficial. If you are a fintech and you want to leverage our data to get more people into the financial system, we will oblige you and ensure that whatever agreement we reach with you on your business idea is protected.”

Chinedu Echeruo, founder, HopStop, which was sold to Apple for $1 billion, was the keynote speaker. He alongside other panelists – Musa Itopa Jimoh, Director, Payments System Management Department and Aminu Maida, Executive Director, Technology & Operations, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS).

Other stakeholders also said fintechs would boost credit access and promote growth.

He said the CBN was trying to finalise the incubation of some of these firms and also watch what they were doing. They said there was the need to expand access to finance, find new ways to raise capital, enhance financial inclusion and foster increased participation in the capital market through fintechs.

The CBN recently promoted the use of regulatory sandbox, which is a process for firms to conduct live tests of new, innovative products, services, delivery channels, or business models in a controlled environment, with regulatory oversight, subject to appropriate conditions and safeguards.

This would enable the bank stay abreast of innovations while promoting a safe, reliable and efficient payments system to foster innovation without compromising on the delivery of its mandate.

He said the CBN has released a framework that defines the rules of a Regulatory Sandbox for the Nigerian Payments System to promote competition, embrace new technology, encourage financial inclusion and improve customer experience, to engender public confidence in the financial system.

*894# Unstructured Supplementary Service Data

First Bank of Nigeria Limited has announced that its *894# Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Quick Banking service has hit over 9.5 million customers. This is in clear demonstration of its acknowledged leadership in electronic Banking. The Bank’s USSD banking service, launched in January 2015, is an easy to use, convenient, fast, user-friendly mobile banking channel through which various banking activities are carried out on a mobile phone – across the four major GSM network operators in the country – without the use of the internet.

Customers are able to enjoy a wide range of banking services using the Bank’s *894# USSD banking. These services include; Data and Airtime top-up for self and third-party individuals, Quick Balance Enquiry, Fund Transfers, BVN Enquiry, BVN Linkage, Mini-statement, Account Number Enquiry, Account Opening, Merchant Payment and FirstAdvance loan service. The FirstAdvance loan service enables salary earners take a loan up to 50% of their monthly salary.

FirstMobile Banking Application Upgraded

First Bank of Nigeria Limited has announced that its mobile banking application, FirstMobile has been upgraded with new and improved features to promote safe and convenient Mobile Banking experience for customers.

The Bank’s award-winning and dynamic mobile banking application has been redesigned with improved security and self-service features to ease the navigation capability and proficiency of customers. Its unique cool blue colour background gives it a more appealing interface for customers to enjoy a unified and streamlined banking experience whilst going about their day to day activities.

FirstMobile is now embedded with a card protection service for customers to enable and disable cards on channels, account switch off as well as second-factor authentication and device registration. With the upgraded FirstMobile, customers can remotely initiate the request for a new debit card as well as the replacement of a lost or damaged one, whilst managing activities on their card and account, thus balance enquiry and statement, amongst others.

The biometrics for transactions is another innovative security upgrade on the application to validate transactions. This feature includes fingerprint for transactions, allowing the customer to use his or her fingerprint to consummate all transactions.

Other added features include frequent transaction; dashboard flexibility and personalisation; smoother transaction experience and improved beneficiary management.

With the frequent transaction feature, the user is able to easily access his or her frequently completed transactions – airtime, transfers and bill payments – and reinitiate such with the clicks of a button. This is an additional menu which can easily be accessed from the dashboard. Airtime top-up and data purchase have also been improved, as customers are able to select phone numbers directly from their phone contacts.

The application has been upgraded with a smoother experience on funds transfer, bill payments and airtime transactions as customers can add and delete beneficiary without having to repeatedly enter the recipients’ details over and over again. Users can also take a photo or select from the Avatar (available icons) to personalize their dashboard and beneficiaries for Transfers, Bills Payment & Airtime Transactions by uploading a picture to associate with their beneficiary, especially the more frequent ones.

The dashboard has been designed to reflect the lifestyle and social pattern of the user as it can be customized by adding any profile picture of choice. The dashboard also enables users to monitor their spending patterns over a period. It shows the inflow and outflow of funds on their account.

In need of a loan to meet that pressing need, FirstMobile has you covered and puts you at an advantage with the FirstAdvance and Nano Loan features.

Keen on watching the next blockbuster in your favourite cinema, with FirstMobile, you can book for movie ticket(s) ahead of time, thereby averting the risk of being told the movie is sold-out upon getting to the movie theatre. You can also book for flights at your earliest convenience on FirstMobile.

“The upgraded FirstMobile is built to reflect FirstBank’s resolve at reinforcing the digitisation of our payment systems, whilst putting our customers at an edge to conveniently meet their everyday needs at any time, irrespective of where they are. Indeed, this upgrade makes the application new, as it is designed to suit the social pattern and lifestyle of our customers.” said Chuma Ezirim, Group Executive, e-Business & Retail Products.

“With over 3.7million active users on FirstMobile across android and ios devices, we remain steadfast at regularly reinventing our services on the App with dynamic and innovative capabilities to resonate our focus to deliver state of the art digital solutions to all our customers at all times, irrespective of where they are” he concluded.

Only recently, FirstMobile was awarded the “Best Mobile Banking App” in the country at the Global Business Outlook Awards.

First Bank of Nigeria Limited has announced that its mobile banking application, FirstMobile has been upgraded with new and improved features to promote safe and convenient Mobile Banking experience for customers.

The Bank’s award-winning and dynamic mobile banking application has been redesigned with improved security and self-service features to ease the navigation capability and proficiency of customers. Its unique cool blue colour background gives it a more appealing interface for customers to enjoy a unified and streamlined banking experience whilst going about their day to day activities.

FirstMobile is now embedded with a card protection service for customers to enable and disable cards on channels, account switch off as well as second-factor authentication and device registration. With the upgraded FirstMobile, customers can remotely initiate the request for a new debit card as well as the replacement of a lost or damaged one, whilst managing activities on their card and account, thus balance enquiry and statement, amongst others.

The biometrics for transactions is another innovative security upgrade on the application to validate transactions. This feature includes fingerprint for transactions, allowing the customer to use his or her fingerprint to consummate all transactions.

Other added features include frequent transaction; dashboard flexibility and personalisation; smoother transaction experience and improved beneficiary management.

By Collins Nweze

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bankers’ Committee of Nigeria, has launched its cybersecurity & fraud awareness campaign, called ‘Moni Sense’.

The campaign is to educate the public on ways of protecting themselves against cyber fraud and scams. As we kick off the end of year business season, comprehensive fraud and cybersecurity awareness remains important in ensuring the general Nigerian public is informed on their role in protecting their banking information from fraudulent activities.

Speaking on the initiative, Chairman, Financial Literacy and Public Enlightenment Sub-Committee (FLPE), Emeka Emuwa, said fraudsters and scammers continually devise new ways to deceive the unsuspecting public, usually to lure them to inadvertently disclose confidential bank information.

“We encourage Nigerians to always be cautious and ignore any text message, phone call, or email asking to update your bank information, provide sensitive bank details, disclose online banking details, debit card numbers, bank verification number (BVN) or PIN to anyone.”

Read Also: CBN defends policy interventions

Financial literacy and public enlightenment are a critical pillar of the Bankers’ Committee mandate, making initiatives like this critical to the goal of increasing the number of financially included citizens in the country. With this initiative, the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee of Nigeria aims to ensure Nigerians are empowered with critical information and knowledge necessary to make important financial decisions, enhance economic prosperity, stay fraud aware and cyber safe, and drive poverty reduction across the country.

In March 2020, the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee introduced credit support schemes for households, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises and businesses across several sectors including Healthcare, Manufacturing, Agriculture, Trading, and Aviation.

The bank unveiled a succession of targeted facilities starting with a N50 billion credit facility to support households, and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), followed by another N100 billion credit support intervention for the health sector as part of efforts to combat the negative impact of coronavirus (COVID 19) on the Nigerian economy.