Standard Bank pushes for mobile interoperability
The Global Head of Transactional Products and Services, Standard Bank Group, Mr Hassan Khan, has backed moves by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to facilitate money transfer services from one mobile money service provider to another, describing it as a necessary innovation in the modern space of banking.
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In the advent of seamless transactions in the financial space, Mr Khan said one could not think about a seamless mobile money services without interoperability – the industry term for money transfer across networks.
As a result, he said the move by the BoG and other regulators to make mobile money services interoperable was a great step forward.
“We need to talk about interoperability both between banks and mobile operators,” he told the paper in an interview.
“It should be easier to move funds from bank ‘A’ to bank ‘B’. This same interoperability applies to the mobile money space. People should be able to move funds across different networks.For instance,it should be possible for a MTN customer to transfer money to Airtel or tiGo customers without a hitch,” he added.
The issue of interoperability came up last month for public discussion after the BoG announced it had begun a process to contract a company to create the platform for interoperability telecom companies providing mobile money services.
Mr Khan said stakeholders in the financial service sub-sector recently reviewed the payments systems to see if they allowed for the interoperability that consumers wanted.
“One of the things we also discussed was what the end user is actually looking for it,” he said.
He recalled a meeting with the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhiIPSS), where the issue was discussed.
As a bank that aims to be the best in the sector, he said the Standard Bank was engaging clients and partnering bodies such as the GhIPSS and other regulators on how the future looks like and where the bank could help in shaping it differently.
“We met with the GhIPSS on payments and how the payments system should evolve over the next five to 10 years and plan accordingly. It was an open dialogue,” he said.
Brick and mortar
Commenting on the need for branches, Mr Khan said although branches were becoming more expensive to run, “there will always be a place for brick and mortar and branches will always remain.”
“The rate at which banks now invest in branches is reducing. No matter how hard you try, brick and mortar does not give you the level of financial inclusion that we require.”
“Financial inclusion will only come by actually dealing with the client in the time and space and the mode in which they want to deal in.
“The client wants to deal with you at their own time and in a manner that is predicted by them and on the device that they have chosen.
“Mobile banking allows you to pick up your handset when you want it and on the time that you want to and the amount you want and the cost is sometimes pre-known or pre-determined,” he said.
Cost of service
On how the bank will improve service delivery, he said the Standard Bank would be interested in anything that would ensure that the cost of doing business for the client would be lower than what it was.
“We believe we are a financial institution which has the aspirations to be very large as a bank.
“We want to be driving the economic growth of Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and all the countries that we are present in and the only way we can do that is by serving all client base as a bank rather than corporate and small and medium enterprise (SME) and retail,” he explained.
Going forward, he said the bank would continue to improve its services in a manner that brings value to customers.
“By 2020, I will expect to see within the transaction banking a client focused way of thinking that enables the client to get quality service. We should listen to clients with regard to what products to introduce and we should be able to provide a seamless client experience through the creation of value,” he said.
