This year’s GBA Summit, “The Future of Financial Services for Women,” will showcase innovative solutions for the female economy from both within and beyond the GBA network. Building great value propositions around specific life goals such as education, health, housing, mobility, starting and growing a business, wealth, and protection — each with their own ecosystem — requires that financial services providers partner with others in those ecosystems to offer integrated solutions that are both increasingly digitized and increasingly personalized.
One such ecosystem play, targeted at the unbanked, was showcased during last month’s All-Stars Academy in Cape Town. Diamond Bank Nigeria discussed their partnering with mobile network operator MTN Nigeria to offer the Diamond Y’ello Account — a fusion of financial services and telecommunications incentives that is effectively bringing in large numbers of Nigerians who have access to mobile phones but who are alienated from a banking system that has onerous account opening requirements. The partnership enables a range of services for accountholders, including deposits and withdrawals through the extensive MTN agent network, transfers between accounts, access to loans, and access to payment services. The Y’ello Account has so far brought 10 million additional customers to Diamond Bank. Diamond also shared their innovative BETA product — which provides truly doorstep banking — and NMB Bank in Tanzania shared two examples of their digital offer, which rapidly grew their customer base while importantly enabling access to the previously unbanked and underbanked.
The All-Stars Academy Africa brought together a wonderful mix of hugely innovative banks from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. A big thank-you to our Experts from Westpac, BLC Bank, BNP Paribas, Stanbic Bank Zambia, IFC and McKinsey & Company for sharing their insights with our amazing group of learners. This cross-fertilization of knowledge is how ideation and innovation occurs. In that vein, on July 31, we’ll have the first of seven webinars for our new Working Group on Product Innovation for the Women’s Market. We’re delighted to have the support of the Center for Financial Services Innovation — a non-profit financial services consultancy specializing in serving unbanked and underbanked consumers in the United States — in running this Working Group. The goal of this group is to share specific product innovations from both within and beyond the GBA network, so a reminder to members to please sign up.
This month, we welcome our newest member, Zambia National Commercial Bank (Zanaco) Plc, to the Alliance. In this issue we interview Henk Mulder, CEO and Managing Director, who shares his vision for being a totally digital bank by 2020 and how Zanaco is currently serving and will continue to build value for Zambian women.
Finally, this month registration will open for the 2018 GBA Summit, which is being held in the tranquil setting of the Dead Sea in Jordan November 13–15, hosted by Bank Al Etihad. Members, look for your link and code to register for the Summit in your inboxes in the coming weeks. We very much look forward to building out what the future of financial services for women looks like with you.
Thank you
