Equity bank’s innovative business strategy centered on digitization and virtualization successfully saw the bank grow its half year pretax profits by 10% in the first quarter of 2019. Mobile transactions in the bank rose from 76.4% to 77.4 percent from a similar period last year. The bank’s series of digital products dubbed “Eazzy Suite” and its sim-card based mobile banking platform [Equitel] is propelling the bank’s collection of deposits and loan disbursements.
97% of the total transactions of the Bank Group took place outside the branch on mobile channels, agent locations, and ATMs, showing how alternative digital platforms support the bank’s growth. In the first half of the year, Eazzy App, the bank’s smartphone-based mobile application grew its transactions by 28% from 114 to 146 million. At the same time, Equitel transactions grew by 5 % from 121 million to 126 million transactions.
The bank’s digitization strategy has improved customers’ access to credit. Its mobile channel disbursed 1.9 million loans worth Kshs20 billion. Only 100,000 loans were disbursed through branch locations, an older banking channel “…which is evolving to an SME advisory center as customers turn to more convenient self-service digital channels, ” said Dr. James Mwangi, the Group Managing Director and CEO.
Equity Group’s digital strategy stretches beyond customer-based solutions to include digital platforms for business operations. Eazzypay, the digital payment platform for little commerce shops is gaining traction with a 101% growth in the number of transactions and 172% in volume.
Equity Bank’s stellar performance owes to its Omni-channel convergence of products and services, as well as its investment in alternative channels of businesses especially agency banking.
See Equity’s Half-year performance here.
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