Standard Bank has teamed up with African fintech firm Flutterwave to develop digital payment solutions for the bank’s various markets.
Customers in Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Mauritius, Cote D’Ivoire, and Malawi would benefit from e-commerce, card issuance, payments, collections, USSD, loans, and buy-now-pay-later capabilities developed by the two companies.
Individuals, SMEs, major corporations, and institutions will benefit from the integration, which will allow them to fully use the potential of digital payments and e-commerce to build their businesses.
“This partnership is an important step in Standard Bank’s platform journey expanding from our leadership position in traditional financial services to meet clients on the digital platforms where they are shopping, socializing, and doing business. ” Margaret Nienaber, Chief Executive Officer of Client Solutions at Standard Bank said.
Margaret said partnerships with innovative fintechs like Flutterwave underpin the bank’s strategy by integrating its scale and expertise across the African continent with the services and offerings of its partners to offer an expanded range of solutions, delivered in a seamless manner to its clients.
“We are proud that Flutterwave’s white-label services power digital efforts for top banks in Africa. Our partnership with Standard Bank demonstrates that fintechs and banks are not competitors but trusted partners with the key focus being the customer. We plan to grow financial and digital inclusion through this partnership and in the long run, we expect to generate more jobs in the digital economy and enable rapid business growth across the continent”. Olugbenga GB Agboola, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flutterwave said.
The COVID crisis has changed how people buy and sell across Africa—enabling a massive shift to digital payments and e-commerce. According to Statista, digital responses were key to improving services within several sectors such as business, healthcare, and education. A shift to digital payments accounted for 33% of all Covid-19 responses by governments and the private sector of Sub-Saharan African countries in 2020.
Institutions, businesses, and individuals continue to think of ways to reach their customers using digital channels. With this partnership, Standard Bank says it will provide agile tech solutions to its customers to help them grow their businesses online and offline. This partnership denotes the unique collaborative relationship that exists between banks and fintechs across Africa where the customers’ needs and satisfaction take utmost priority.
Reinforcing the importance of the partnership to clients across the continent, Yinka Sanni, Chief Executive of Africa Regions at Standard Bank said: “Standard Bank has an almost 160-year history of serving clients and supporting economic development in Africa. Today, we are the largest financial services group on the continent, with powerful scale advantages and strengths. Coupled with the innovation offered by Flutterwave, we can deliver real impact and growth opportunities to clients across the continent. We believe when our clients grow, Africa grows.”
