This is the stated purpose of African Bank who have developed a proposition that is designed to financially enable all of the people of South Africa. So while many local and global banks focus on developing their purpose and brand proposition around facilitating the Customers Operational Experience the key objective for this bank is a more emotional proposition. The aspiration is that people who engage will say “I was treated with humanity’ – what a powerful mission statement.
African bank is aspiring to provide a low cost banking service model that will result in 15-20 million customers being able to participate in transaction banking for the first time. African Bank’s journey started with the understanding that customers across all income levels are increasingly empowered as they expect to bank on their terms, anytime and anywhere. This is facilitated by offering digital platforms as the primary access channel and so enable them to develop a low cost model which is fundamentally lean and agile. African Bank’s executive team recognised that more of the population in South Africa needs to participate in the economy to build financial security, and that there is an opportunity for a new bank to play a more proactive part in creating financial inclusion.
Financial inclusion involves the provision of affordable, accessible and relevant financial products to individuals and businesses that had previously not been able or even willing to access these products. An inclusive society should ensure that everyone has the opportunity to avail of a banking service as this helps to facilitate funds transfers, manage personal finances and even build SME activity.
To find out more about why banks should be more inclusive and also how they can achieve this goal, please click here.
