FBC Bank has been awarded the Best Digital Bank and Best Mobile Banking Awards 2021 by leading pan-African publication Digital Banker Africa (DBA).
FBC Bank has been awarded the Best Digital Bank and Best Mobile Banking Awards 2021 by leading pan-African publication Digital Banker Africa (DBA). DBA is a prominent publication focusing on digital banking in Africa. Each year the publication celebrates organisations from across Africa that have stood out from their peers with outstanding innovation, infrastructure and development as well as the use of pioneering technology to support their business and customers. This award is testimony to the fact that FBC is adapting and is well positioned to the rapidly changing global market-place. The advancement of technology is changing the way that customers bank, work and live. On demand services are the new normal, allowing customers to shop, make payments, review spending and transfer money on the go. The Digital Banker Africa Awards highlight the organisations making this possible, driving financial inclusion as a key enabler to boost prosperity. FBC’s financial inclusion strategy is encapsulated in the new vision statement “To nurture sustainable solutions that enable the financial well-being of the communities we serve”.
Operating in a developing African economy where 70% of the population is rural and low income, there is much work required to uplift the lives of the majority. FBC has enabled a wallet and low-KYC bank account on the USSD platform which allows every Zimbabwean with a basic feature phone to open a bank account remotely from anywhere within the country.
Zimbabwe has extensive mobile network coverage and the feature phone penetration is high, covering previously marginalised sections of society in remote rural communities. Our USSD-based account opening platform allows previously excluded communities to open a formal bank account and transact easily and instantly without having to use paper or travel to urban centres. FBC has a deliberate solutionist and data-driven strategy that is geared towards financially including the base-of-the-pyramid beyond payments in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A collaborative ecosystem approach underlies FBC’s strategy in working with banks, fintechs, vendors and regulators to create value.
FBC has also launched a digital insurance and account opening app that allows customers to digitally insure and licence vehicles as well as open different types of bank accounts instantly using one application. At the same time, FBC Bank has launched a digital assistant named Noku which supports and interacts with clients using the WhatsApp platform.
FBC has developed a single app that allows access to different products and services from banking to insurance from one touchpoint. The application enables end-to-end full KYC account-opening in less than five minutes after autonomously doing four API-based checks in the background including:
- Identity
- Facial comparison
- Liveness verification
- Anti-money laundering.
FBC has enabled digital account-opening through three different platforms:
- USSD for KYC-lite wallet and account
- WhatsAppbanking for KYC-lite wallet and account
- iOS and Google Playstore — for full KYC account
By enabling customers to open accounts on the different platforms, FBC Bank has enabled all segments including the base-of-the-pyramid to access financial services easily, thereby accelerating financial inclusion. FBC was also the first institution in the country to implement optical character recognition technology within a banking app, thus enabling one to open a full KYC account expeditiously.
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