The Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) launched its online financial service Loop in March 2017. The product was, and is still targeting young adults under the age of 40 popularly known as millennials who would rather perform transactions on their mobile devices rather than go to a physical banking hall. The platform was in the form of a smartphone app, and packed all the bells and whistles of what you would expect of a modern financial tool: bill payments, savings and Loop investments. We dived into the service’s offerings here and here.
Users or readers may have noticed that Loop missed one key service, and that is online loans. Well, it happens that the folks at CBA knew about the lucrative nature of integrating lending services in Loop, particularly in a market that has demonstrated a big appetite for easy-to-access loans if the manner in which similar products have been embraced is anything to go by. Loop has also boosted the visuals of the app, with extra revisions for some transactions and so forth.
About Loop loans: the bank will be the first lender to offer up to Kes 3 million and an overdraft of up to Kes 100,000 through the app sans time-consuming paperwork. That is a huge sum, and CBA says that chances of qualifying for higher limits depend on whether Loop is your primary account.
CBA has made some changes to transaction charges as shown.
| Transaction Type | Cost |
|---|---|
| Loop to M-PESA (B2C) | Kes 38.50 |
| Loop to Loop | Free |
| MasterCard International ATM Fee | Kes 150 |
| Airtime Purchases | Free |
| Pay to Safaricom Pay Bill | Free |
| Buy Goods - Pay to Till | Free |
Loop to M-PESA and ATM withdrawals have been reduced by 44% and 40% respectively.
Extras
While I’m not a Loop user, I remember trying to sign up for the service some time in April 2017. The onboarding process was, at least for me, chaotic. There were way too many fields to be filled, and the number of security questions and additional user information was simply overwhelming, which is why, if I remember well, I stopped somewhere on the way and gave up. CBA acknowledges this challenge, and has thus simplified the exercise to last under five minutes.
While not entirely new for similar services, users will now have quick access to popular billers such as Kenya Power, Zuku, DSTv and Nairobi Water, to mention a few. This means that you will not have to memorize some pay bill numbers and that is always a good thing.
Quotes
“The advancements that we are introducing now are a product of feedback from our customers over the last one year, as well as proactive measures that recognize the growing importance of the mobile phone interface in the delivery of a wide range of customer focused services,” said Eric Muriuki, General Manager of the New Business Ventures division at CBA.
“The new transaction services, coupled with benefits such as the ability to track your expenses, set financial targets and make savings, now position Loop as the most dynamic digital banking service in the market today and the best tool to have for all your financial service needs,” added Muriuki.
