As Fintechs and Neo-banks begin to scale on the continent, KPMG Professional Services has stressed the need for banks across the continent to adopt emerging technologies and create more functional, responsive, intuitive digital channels that would help drive better engagements and boost financial inclusion.
The company noted that with increased activities of the big tech firms, the window of opportunity to attain experience maturity levels demanded by today’s customers may be closing faster than imagined for retail banks.
To attain these experience maturity levels, KPMG, in its report on ‘Digital Channels Scorecard for Leading Retail Banks in Africa’, a publication that unveils in-depth insights on the state of user experience at 26 leading retail banks across Africa, stated that retail banks will need to be more intentional with product design, journey optimisation, data analytics and building resilient digital channels.
According to the company, changing consumer expectations, increasing competition from non-bank players, emerging technologies, and an evolving political and regulatory landscape have all converged to form an inflexion point that is redefining the future of enterprises.
“As organisations respond, we are beginning to see patterns that differentiate digital leaders from others; patterns that take root in the experience consumers have across the digital touchpoints with which they interact. We are seeing an acceleration of growth, enhanced engagement and stickiness with the players that have intentionally invested in user experience.
“It is in this light that we have performed a series of user journey-centred assessments culminating in the Digital Channels Scorecard for leading retail banks in Africa. The Scorecard provides an industry perspective of how banks across the continent deliver the experience demanded by a new generation of consumers, many of whom are digital natives.”
Specifically, Partner and Lead, Digital Transformation, KPMG, Boye Ademola, said customers no longer view their experiences in an industry silo, rather, they expect banks to focus on creating experiences that are functional, responsive, intuitive, and delightful.
Ademola said there is a need for banks to invest heavily and deploy digital technology because payment and transfer remain their core revenue-generating avenue for the sector.
He pointed out that some banks are currently faced with disjointed processes and the inability to onboard customers diligently and still focus on traditional response channels.
Although he admitted that the digital leaders are advancing their processes, he, however, noted that they needed to ‘up their games’ with product management, design and prototyping.
Partner and Head, Risk Consulting and Innovations at KPMG Nigeria, Olumide Olayinka said banks must adopt digital technology that would enhance cost efficiency and payment across the continent to facilitate trade and business transactions.
He pointed out that the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) would help deepen banking transactions across the continent for banks that have scaled up and adopted the needed technology with superior customer experience to enhance their business operations and make transactions seamless.
Also speaking at the event, Partner, Risk Consulting, KPMG Ghana, Andrew Akoto said because the fintech is emerging rapidly, offering fulfilling digital experience, even in the capital market, banks must focus on enhancing customer user experience in a more intuitive and non-frictional way.
