Accra, Ghana//-Universal Merchant Bank (UMB), a leading Ghanaian universal bank in the country is poised to become Ghana’s Digital-first bank within the shortest time as it turns 50 years tomorrow.
The Chief Executive Officer of UMB, Nana Kwadwo Dwemoh Benneh, who disclosed this to journalists in Accra at a media soiree to announce the activities to mark the bank’s 50th anniversary, explained that the move would enable the bank to serve its numerous customers better.
He said the UMB’s desire to become a digital-first bank in Ghana is on course, stressing that; this is because the bank believes that technology has been democratized to the stage the barrier of entry is very low.
So, many people in the country, especially the youth, can use technology tools to access banking services with ease, according to him.
Mr Dwemoh Benneh added: “We have a number of young people who are some of the best financial technology (fintech) providers in the country. When you look at fintech reports in Africa, Kenya and Ghana are doing very well in Africa”.
Comparing the digital-first banking to that of traditional one, he said: “You see, traditional banking requires that you have a lot of bricks and mortar to grow. If you wanted to grow you had to make sure that you increased your branches.
Now, technology has ensured that you can bank people without necessarily having branches exactly everywhere they are”.
So we think that that strategy enables us to expand and to grow and to gain market share without necessarily putting in a colossal amount of investments that used to be required should you want to expand”.
Mr Dwemoh Benneh, flanked by the some directors and senior executives of the bank also believes in digitization; it is not only about products and services that they are offering to the clients but the back-office work that compliments that.
“We believe that as we apply digitization to some of the occupational work as well, it frees our staff to engage more with the customer and offer more of the relationship approach, an advisory approach to the customers”.
“So that the customer doesn’t need to come and ask, does my salary come? “or have you processed my cheque or when is my transfer going? “, among others.
As we apply digitization to those kinds of things, when the customer comes the discussion will be what kinds of investments do I have; or the projects that I have; how can I finance them”.
So we move away from the transactional day-to-day to a more advisory one. We think that if we are able to do that we can get returns on our investments faster, the CEO told the editors and senior journalists on Sunday 13, March 2022.
50th year milestone
So as the UMB celebrates its 50 years on Tuesday 15, March, 2022, Mr Dwemoh Benneh and his team of banking experts contemplate on their 50th year milestone, these are the kinds of hard and fast strategy thrust that they have.
As the CEO stated: “Our overarching theme is this; we have been here for 50 years, we have a number of customers and we want more customers, we will like to go back and find out from them, what are their requirements, what do they want going forward and what are some of the things that are occupying their minds.
So through that engagement, we can see how we are going to up our services and products to them so that we become increasingly the bank of choice”.
Basically, what we are looking for is to engage and re-engage to an extent where we can offer things that are relevant to the kinds of customers that we want to attract so that we can use that as a stepping stone to grow the market share of our institution”.
Customer centric
For this year, the bank’s real focus apart from marking its 50th anniversary, is customer centric which looks to actually dialogue with customers to find out what is it that they require and what is it they value, and above all what sort of products and services that they are looking for.
That is perhaps its key focus as they go into the celebrations of the 50th anniversary.
Previously known as Merchant Bank Ghana Limited, UMB is an indigenous bank that has been providing exceptional banking services to customers within 50 years. So this makes UMB one of the oldest indigenous banks in the country.
Eyeing business developments within Africa
The bank under the leadership of Mr Dwemoh Benneh is eyeing business developments within the continent of Africa.
He noted that within the continent, there are a lot of developments that are happening. There are a lot of talks about the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) where a number of policies have been put in place to implement a pan-African payment system which holds a lot of promise.
“So we want to put our eyes on it to see how we can plug it. If you are not a multinational bank that has branches in other countries, one of the key ways in which you can also explore that opportunity is to understand the linkages, and then you look for other banks that are similar in other countries so you can do partnerships so that you can compete with the multinationals in those countries”.
Indeed, since 1972, the bank with a clear charge to support Ghanaians to take the commanding heights of the economy, has strived to constantly live up to that charge, with a clear focus on putting the customer first.
African Eye Report
