Ecobank Transnational’s sheer weight of presence – it delivers banking services to 32 million people in 33 sub-Saharan African countries – could have been a hindrance, a geographical burden. Instead, it transformed into a positive, and the bank has done so in large part by drawing up an impressively coherent digital strategy.
Its One Bank model allows it to manufacture services and products centrally then distribute them across the region. Standardization like this allows it to build new services, bolt them on, then update or modify them for pan-African use. The bank reckons this approach provides it with “a significant comparative and scalable advantage” over its competitors.
As is the case with all the best banks, Covid acted as a digital accelerant. Ecobank busied itself unveiling new ideas and products. Customers flocked to it, attracted by its digital ease of use. The value of transactions leapt sharply in 2021 over 2020, including through its Ecobank Mobile (up 51%), Ecobank Online (73%) and Xpress (103%) digital platforms.
Ecobank’s