Awards for Excellence 2020
Kenya’s Equity Bank stands out for its digital offering, and is poised to take advantage of the coronavirus-fuelled pivot towards cashless banking.
Kenya is already a leader in digital banking, with over 30 million people using mobile money services last year. The success of Safaricom’s M-Pesa app has dramatically increased financial inclusion across the country, highlighting how banks must be innovative and highly digitalized to serve the needs of the population.
Equity Bank has long been a leader in digital banking services: in 2019, over 97% of its transactions were done outside branches; 79% via mobile and 11% via agency.
“The objective of the bank is to transform lives and livelihoods, and being in three additional countries would add that. But we can still achieve that by deepening in countries we [operate in],” says chief executive James Mwangi. “If you look at Kenya during the interest cap period, we increased our market share from 11% to 13% which is a significant deepening.
“Covid has become a catalyst for digitalization.