Selcom and Ecobank partner to reach customers in untapped markets through branchless banking
Ecobank becomes the 12th bank in Tanzania to complement its current branches and ATM channels through Selcom’s footprint of 20,000+ agents across Tanzania to offer agency banking for easy deposits and withdrawals.
Ecobank joins the Selcom Huduma family in extending its financial services under Selcom’s previously termed Selcom Paypoint brand; an innovative, safe and secure channel that caters to mobile financial services, commonly known as Agency Banking. The objective for Selcom to facilitate expansion and convenient banking services for established banks like Ecobank is to support the country’s financial inclusion framework and enable spread and penetration of banking services.
The service extended to Ecobank was born out of the need to establish a convenient way to tap into the geographically dispersed and hard to reach segment of Ecobank’s clientele by going beyond the conventional norm of opening branches while also boosting the banks’ revenue streams.
Ecobank, like Selcom’s other partners, has adopted the agency banking strategy towards enhancing financial inclusion across the country.
“Ecobank Tanzania’s partnership with Selcom enables us to extend provision of our financial services and deliver an alternative innovative, safe and secure channel through agency banking. This partnership provides an efficient solution to reach geographically dispersed and remote customer segments throughout Tanzania by going beyond the conventional norm of opening branches while also providing a giant step in tackling
financial exclusion. In line with the government’s objectives, we believe this partnership firmly promotes financial inclusion in Tanzania, as it allows Tanzanians, no matter their location, to have access to banking services.
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Due to the shared infrastructure and open-banking model that Selcom has in place, this offering is valuable for banks and financial institutions who are aiming to ensure that their customers have access to a ready base of agents that hardly suffer from liquidity challenges and data connectivity, which are the two biggest pain points that agents cite.
Selcom’s Executive Director, Sameer Hirji believes that in areas of high-volume, low-value transactions, investing in branch network expansion is not cost-efficient. Through a trusted agent network like Selcom’s, banks can break through this barrier to scalability, limit paper-based processing and significantly reduce branch upkeep and operating costs, while supplementing income for agents. In addition, Selcom ensures that agents have the latest devices that offer all relevant services demanded by customers as widely as possible, any time, any where.
“Ecobank sees the value we bring to the table. Selcom Huduma is an obvious choice. Banks and financial institutions don’t need to invest in infrastructure and assets that are not core to their business. In a well-regulated market like Tanzania where the Bank of Tanzania condemns agent exclusivity, it makes little sense for banks to own the agent relationship because it only leads to agents hosting multiple devices, one for each bank, with each device demanding its own dedicated working capital. This is an inefficient way to maximize the return on an agent’s already limited working capital. Selcom’s shared agent approach not only saves banks money while giving agents a much higher return on their working capital but also accommodates smaller banks and financial institutions who would otherwise be unable to offer this service channel. A shared network means that even the smallest of the small will be served because agents don’t have to dedicate working capital to any one bank. This is a game changer for banks that understand and assess our value proposition pragmatically. In an evolving space where the useful life of a device is significantly shorter now than ever before.”
About Selcom:
Selcom is the largest cross-segment financial and payment services provider operating in Tanzania, providing its customers in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a full range of payment processing services.
About Ecobank:
Ecobank Tanzania was established and licensed on 2nd February 2010. It is licensed and supervised by the Bank of Tanzania. The Bank has its Head Office located at Acacia Building, 84 Kinondoni road, and has five branches, seven Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), 417 Xpress Point agencies, and serves numerous customers through its Consumer, Commercial and banking, SME and treasury divisions. The Bank is 99.9% owned by Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), the pan-African financial conglomerate headquartered in Lomé, Togo, which operates in 33 countries in Africa. Ecobank Group also has a banking licence in France and representative offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Beijing, China; London, UK; and Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The Group offers a full suite of banking products, services and solutions including bank and deposit accounts, loans, cash management, advisory, trade, securities, wealth and asset management. ETI is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchanges in Lagos, the Ghana Stock Exchange in Accra, and the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières in Abidjan. For further information please visit www.ecobank.co.tz
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