United Bank for Africa(UBA) Plc is offering a new product, UBA Connect, which aims to enable its customers to conduct traditional banking transactions at any UBA branch in the 20 African countries where the bank operates.
In upholding the banks drive towards financial inclusion for the underserved, the service will be available to both customers and non-customers equally, encouraging intra-African trade. This would make the Nigerian-based bank a prefered choice for non-customers travelling to African countries where the bank is the domicile for easy access to funds.
According to the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of UBA Africa, Oliver Alawuba, “Africa stands to benefit substantially from intra-Africa trade, which is facilitated by the easy flow of capital within the continent.” He also said that because the bank is committed to creating superior value for all its stakeholders, it is focused on ensuring that it continues “to contribute significantly to the development of Africa by improving accessibility and trade with UBA Connect, among other innovative services.”
This product is likely to trigger an exponential growth for the bank, given the fact that the unbanked in sub-Saharan Africa – developing countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania – are a significant number of the roughly 1.7 billion “unbanked” individuals around the world. The bank currently services over 19 million customers across Africa. But with this new product, that number is bound to double if the public is fully aware and educated on how to use this product.
The CEO further explained that the new offering allows easy transfers to UBA accounts across African countries as well as cash deposits into UBA accounts at any of the bank’s locations in Africa, adding that the cash will be dispensed to customers in local currencies at competitive exchange rates. It would be eliminating the agelong hassle of transferring money to business partners, relatives or friends from one African country where the bank is domiciled to another.
Group Head, Marketing, Mrs Dupe Olusola, expressed excitements for the bank to be able to offer its customers the ease and convenience of UBA Connect. She noted that UBA Connect is in addition to an array of digital platforms which have made banking seamless for their customers
UBA Plc operates in 3 global financial centres: London, Paris and New York. Headquartered in Nigeria, the other African countries it operates in include Ghana, Benin Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Cameroon, Kenya, Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Mozambique, Senegal, Congo DR, Congo Brazzaville and Mali.
