Business News of Saturday, 1 October 2016

Source: B&FT

Prudential Bank launches new product

File photo File photo

Prudential Bank has introduced another innovative e-banking product known as ‘mobiWise’ which seeks to help customers experience a seamless integration of their bank account with the mobile money wallet platform of their selected telecommunication company.

According to the bank, the customer centric electronic banking product allowed customers to be able to perform selected banking transactions, anytime, anywhere and at their own convenience using the mobile phone.

Speaking at the launch of the product in Accra on Tuesday, Deputy Managing Director in charge of Banking Operations Prudential Bank Mrs. Mary Brown noted that with ‘mobiWise’ her outfit was offering customers the ease and convenience of banking on their phone 24/7 as well as accessibility and availability to all the banking transactions usually done through the traditional banking channels.

She stated that the mobile banking service facilitates the linking of one’s traditional bank account to a mobile money wallet of the selected telecommunication company.

This direct integration she said allowed the movement of funds between two, account-to-wallet and vice versa.

Throwing more light on the reasons for the introduction of their latest banking product Mrs. Brown said the growing importance of mobile money in the country naturally, sterms from the fact that over the last decade, mobile phones penetration rate has grown in leaps and bounds.

At the end of June 2016 there were about 26.4 million mobile voice subscribers according to the June, 2016 Telecom Subscriptions Report by the National Communication Authority (NCA) giving a total penetration rate of 131.89 per cent.

This kind of penetration improves the accessibility and availability of mobile money solutions to the general population.

Between 2012 and 2015, registered mobile money subscribers increased from 3.8 million to 15.1 million and registered mobile money agents increased from 8,660 to 93,376, transaction also jumped from 18 million to 266 million while the value of transactions ballooned from GH? 596 million to over GH ? 35 billion.

“Prudential Bank would continue to work hard to uphold their customer focused values by embracing and leveraging new technologies to meet the changing needs and demands of its valued customers across the country,” she added.

Mr. Stephen A. Asare, Acting Deputy Managing Director in charge of Finance, Administration and Credit Administration said the bank was poised to introducing more products to meet the needs of customers.

He said technology had transformed the way banking was done adding that the bank had rolled out a number of electronic banking products to make transactions easier for customers.

“At Prudential Bank the customer remain our topmost priority because we are in business because of them,” he said.

Explaining the key features of the new product, Head of e-banking at Prudential Bank Mr. Frank Afari Ankamah said the product links one’s registered mobile money wallet (MTN, Airtel and Tigo) to the traditional account with Prudential Bank which allows the customer to transfer funds from your mobile money wallet to any account within Prudential Bank (wallet-to-account), transfer money from your Prudential Bank account to any registered mobile money wallet on MTN, Airtel and Tigo (account-to-wallet) top-up airtime.

Mrs. Akosua A. Boahen, Head Marketing and Corporate Affairs said the bank would continue to uphold its customer focused values by embracing and leveraging new technologies to meet the changing needs of customers.

She said plans were in place to introduce more exciting products for customers.