The management of Standard Chartered Bank has disclosed plans to launch what it calls the digital bank in Nigeria in the coming days.
The regional head of retail banking, Africa and Middle East at Standard Chartered, Jaydeep Gupta, disclosed this to GlobalData, an analytic company.
He said the launch in Nigeria will follow the eight digital banks, which it has already launched so far and is working on the roll-out of the SC Keyboard to additional markets in Africa such as Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria throughout the rest of the year.
“We have now launched digital banks in eight markets within 15 months as we have seen a growing demand for convenient banking in Africa. In line with this, we will be launching our digital bank in Nigeria,” he revealed.
The SC Keyboard platform, according to Gupta allows customers to access a variety of financial services from within any social or messaging platform without having to open the banking app. It can be configured as the default keyboard on any smartphone, making banking quick and seamless for customers who no longer need to log into their SC Mobile app for basic banking services.
Africa is generally perceived as a cash focused continent when it comes to alternative forms of banking and payments. While cash is still popular, mobile money is actively catching up fast in 31 countries in Africa, with 84 million active mobile money accounts.