Banks, which are in the race to catch up with the offerings of digital technologies have, for the most part, been the pioneers of new, financial-based tech-oriented products. At the moment, these financial institutions are pushing their services to the grassroots in a bid to net more users and transactions. Parts of these campaigns have leveraged mobile banking services that have done a fine job in eliminating countless trips to the bank for an activity that can otherwise be performed with a few clicks on a smart handheld.
I have been an Equity Bank’s loyal customer for the better part of the last decade, and while my use of their services was mostly restricted to checking if the good people at Anniversary Towers have deposited cash on my account in the name of HELB, I continued to use the account after school. This relationship received a notable boost when the bank launched a mobile app aka EazzyBanking App. It is a functional app that has grown on me, and I have been impressed by the developer’s speed in updating it in a timely manner to address some user concerns.
A few months ago, you couldn’t purchase airtime for Telkom Kenya subscribers using the app. This was fixed. Also, the app was not optimized for Android Oreo when the launched (Oreo). After having an exchange with the bank, the issue was rectified with an update in less than a week. Generally speaking, this is the form of customer experience and response that customers love to see and would go a long way if they continue with the same spirit.
A fortnight or so ago, the app was furnished with a new update that primarily added a new language: Chinese Mandarin. The update targets the ever-increasing number of Chinese expatriates working in the region to get access to banking services in their native language. This development will be augmented by a fully-fledged Chinese desk that serves Chinese clients.
Furthermore, Equity Bank says the update will consolidate its efforts to expand its turf in the growing Sino-Kenya trade that continues to illustrate marked growth.
Equity used the chance to remind users that its product allows cross-platform sending of cash long before interoperability went testing as we noted in this piece.
Equity hopes to digitize its entire service portfolio (including corporate services and lacing loan application with AI tricks) by mid-2018 as it targets to surpass the 96 percent mark of banking transactions that it performs outside its bank branches.
