Standard Charted Bank Kenya is championing to be the first financial institution in rolling out mobile commerce ecosystem network to enhance its mobile banking operations.
The upgrade will be made possible by the banks’ three year partner, Cellulant, which has so far powered over 32 banks in Africa. Cellulant operates the continents leading mobile commerce network which has since seen the financial institution recording Sh10 billion in its transaction over the last year.
Standard Chartered Kenya’s Consumer Banking Director, Kariuki Ngari, expressed hope in the adoption of the new platform saying that it will see the institution doubling its mobile banking customer base.
“The investment has already seen the bank double the active base of M-banking users over the second quarter winning the Bank an award within its global network. The bank is eager to see its customers adopt the new platform as it plans to roll out new services on its alternative channels” said Ngari.
The new plartform dubbed, “Release 3.0” enables banking, merchant services, digital services, bulk payments and agency banking via applications on android, ios (apple) and other channels access such as USSD, SMS and Java applications.
“Standard Chartered Bank’s decision to upgrade to Cellulant’s new mobile commerce platform, is also based on the platform robustness which allows the bank to tailor make different products for various markets across Africa,” added Ngari.
Noting that Cellulant has enabled over 30 mobile network providers in deploying its mobile commerce plartfom to banking, insurance, retail and manufacturing industries, Ndichu said the consumers will experience a transformation through their mobile phones.
“We have built a mobile commerce network that is connected to different platforms across different value chains in Africa such as MNO wallets, banks, Merchant bill payment gateways and content delivery channels to deliver a transformational experience on mobile,” Ndichu explained.
Earlier on the institution deployed mobile commerce applications through the Apple (iPhone and iPad) for its customers and employees, with applications such as BREEZE, FX RATES, Straight-to-Bank and Trade port.
On his part, Cellulant’s Chief Business Officer, Paul Ndichu, said the firms ability to drive product enhancement and new mobile commerce platforms is attributable to its 15percent investment on annual revenues from all its markets in Research and Development.
The upgraded software intergrates core banking systems with secuirty features, has monitoring and channel management business tools. It aggregates banks channels such as ATM and Internet Banking to enhance customer’s user experience and also enables cardless withdrawals, secure PIN management, SMS alerts on mobile for ATM, bill presentment and payment.