#PaymentsEA: Banks urged not to get rid of their branches in a bid to go digital

Banks have been urged not to get rid of their branches in a bid to go digital, because it might lead to poor client and customer relations.

This was said by, Andrew Otiko, CEO, Mobinet Group Holdings, during the Payments, Future Bank and e-Commerce East Africa conference being held at Radisson Blu Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

“Banking is a highly regulated industry if you want to do an audit, if you want to do compliance checks; you have to do it at the banks,” said Otiko.

If you are dealing with complex products, like mortgages, I don’t want to make that decision on a mobile phone, I want to sit in front of someone and ask, What if?” he continued saying that the presence of human interaction leads to easier and more informed transactions.

Andrew posed the question: “would you open an account with a bank that does not have a physical branch?” and went on to assure me that modernisation still has a place in the financial industry, and that banks should focus on upgrading their branches to make them more modern.

“The first thing you walk into a bank and see is a queue, so queue management systems are important, I’ve seen queue management systems that ask you what you want to do in the bank; pay bills, transfer money etcetera. So it points you to the right queue. And as a teller I also know what I am doing in the bank,” said Otiko

“If you are talking about modernising services of the bank, you need to have skills and talent in the bank, you need to have an advisory hub; if everything is going mobile, all the basic transactions are going mobile, you need to make sure you can go to the bank for financial education,” he added.

Otiko also spoke about updating legacy systems in banks so as to keep up with trends saying that: “If you are using the bank branch, modernising it there are legacy systems. You get situations where banks are using old systems for old clients and they are also trying to adopt. So modernising the bank is also about modernising the legacy systems, making sure they can deal with trends in mobile and in social media,”

On what Mobinet is doing to enable financial inclusion Otiko says that the company works with banks to provide them with technology similar to Equity’s thin SIM card for customers, adding that the company has helped banks in West Africa and is now looking to move to East Africa.

“The platform works without the internet, so it works if you do not have a Smartphone. If you have a feature phone it doesn’t matter, if we are talking about financial inclusion we need to include everyone,” concluded Otiko.