Banking
Polaris Bank’s massive investment in core information technology infrastructure has lent impetus to what has today become a stable financial services to its customers with the VULTe platform becoming the new bride in the digital banking ecosystem, writes Nume Ekeghe
Recently, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), in its report titled: ‘Instant Payments – 2020 Annual Statistics’, disclosed that the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated the adoption of instant payments as more people are switching to electronic channels for funds exchange. The report noted that mobile accounted for 43 per cent of total transactions in 2020, while 35 per cent were with Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), indicating that 78 per cent of total transfer transactions were carried out using mobile devices.
While the Fintechs have recently hugged most news headlines as disruptors in the financial space, very little is often reported of the traditional banks that have shown immense agility in digital banking, especially in helping to stimulate macro-economic growth.
Aside its legacy status as a regulatory-induced intervention in 2018 and its notable investment in digital transformation and stellar financial performance, Polaris Bank has quietly but steadily raised the ante in digital innovation. The bank had recently revealed that its digital bank, VULTe, had recorded over one million customers in less than four months after its formal launch in May 2021.
This feat, is phenomenal in the emerging history of digital banking solutions in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa and a major boost to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) financial inclusion drive. A precursor to this achievement was a prior pronouncement by the bank’s Chairman, Muhammad. K. Ahmad, during the launch of the platform. Mr. Ahmad had declared: “VULTe is our first major step in giving back control to our customers who have remained loyal to their bank over the years.”
The Acting Managing Director/CEO of the bank Mr. Innocent C. Ike, while interacting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during the tour of financial services exhibition stands at the just-concluded 14th Annual Banking and Finance Conference held in Abuja, explained the bank’s journey to attaining over one million customers on the VULTe platform noting that VULTe by Polaris Bank is testimonial to the bank’s commitment in enabling the unbanked and the underbanked into the financial system through the use of their mobile devices.
Analysts have lauded the latest digital customer enrolment by VULTe as the fastest customer acquisition by any traditional bank via a digital banking platform in Nigeria in recent times. Polaris Bank’s massive investment in core IT infrastructure has lent impetus to what has today become a stable financial services to their customers. The investment has also provided a budding digital platform, which has contributed in growing the bank’s agency banking network called SurePadi and digital lending product, Polaris Salary Advance.
They also note that this will further accelerate the CBN and federal government’s financial and economic inclusion drive especially given Polaris Bank’s spread to many communities across Nigeria. Onboarding a critical mass of customers on the digital platform will stimulate economic activities amongst the poor, who can open a bank account from the comfort of their homes and pay for essential products and services in minutes.
Polaris Bank’s customer acquisition is also taking place on the backdrop of the momentous growth in internet penetration in the country, which has witnessed over a hundred million internet users in Nigeria, a 22.1 per cent growth between January 2020 and January 2021. This figure is projected to grow to 142.73 million by the end of 2026.
VULTe is a digital bank that provides customers with convenient solutions beyond their basic banking needs and enables end-to-end account opening, ensuring that customers can open and transact their accounts without entering any physical bank. They can also make QR code payments, make debit card requests, issuance, and activation.
Sharing his experience on the one million customer milestone within a record time, Mr. Ike attributed it to the scalability of the Platform, which ensures continuous improvement in the platform’s features as well as the personalised user experience which has transformed customer service to self-service. In his words, “we thank our customers for making this possible, it challenges us to do more to serve you better”
Expressing his excitement, the bank’s Chief Digital Officer, Mr. Dele Adeyinka, noted that VULTe has so far “attracted many users in the financial and non-financial sectors who seek business partnerships to boost the value offerings to their clients and customers. Many businesses have shown growing interest in the Platform’s Open Banking Services through its Application Programming Interface (API). The Open Banking service platform provides secured access for businesses to deliver unique products and services to their customers.”
Among the early adopters of VULTe Open Banking services are financial technology firms, financial services providers, merchant aggregators, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), covering education, agriculture, manufacturing, and publishing. Others include large businesses and government /revenue-generating agencies.
The platform supports services such as the seamless opening of the virtual account, bill payment through transfers, automated payment notifications, online payment gateway, payroll management, and Know Your Business/Know Your Customer (KYB/KYC) profiles.
The global Consulting giant KPMG, in its Digital Channels ScoreCard Report, released in August 2021 sub-titled: Leveraging Superior User Experience (UX) on Digital Channels to drive Retail Banking Growth in Nigeria. The report provided an industry perspective of how effective banks are in delivering products and services to customers as customers traverse a range of journeys to access products and services on four distinct digital channels – mobile banking, Internet banking, USSD, and Chatbot. The Scorecard covers 13 anchor journeys grouped into five thematic areas: Digital Onboarding; Payments & Transfers; Digital Lending; Self-Service and Customer Care.
Several industry reviews and customer insight affirm that VULTe by Polaris Bank is sailing on all parameters with a growing platform capability to provide more benefits and convenience to its customers.
They further noted that critical to the success of most digital transformation initiatives as in the case of VULTe is execution. The management of the Bank has been resilient and consistently shown the capacity to execute its digital transformation initiatives impacting in the areas of people, brand identity, business, technology, products.
With the recent scorecard, Polaris Bank through its VULTe platform has become the new bride in the digital banking ecosystem. This feat will no doubt ignite a renewed conversation on how incumbents can disrupt self in the value creation process especially in designing platforms that can help scale other businesses.
