By Nnamdi Odumody

Since the commencement of banking operations in 1945, Wema Bank has proven itself as an incubator of inventions and creative ideas. With the launch of ALAT, Nigeria’s first digital banking platform, the bank extended the limits of experiential banking.

ALAT is the first step for Wema Bank. In the next few years, depending on its progress, ALAT can be divested from Wema Bank, to allow it to compete more aggressively in the African market without being tethered to a bank and the associated regulation. The regulation is important and there is nothing wrong with that: banks like Wema Bank take customer deposits, unlike most fintechs, and should be regulated. So, ALAT can become an operational arm of Wema Bank while the bank remains a dumb pipeline, typical of most traditional banks today (i.e. not much intelligence due to lack of deep insights), to support what that modern banking named ALAT does. Perhaps in 10 years, Wema Bank may even simply change its name to ALAT if this new modern banking solution evolves into its future.

Wema Bank won the 2018 Accenture Nigeria Innovation Index – Banking Innovation Masters Award, Banking Innovation Concepts Award and Banking Strategy Ideation Absorption Award. Now it is organizing Hackaholics, a two day hackathon from March 29-31 2019 which will bring together tech professionals to create innovative solutions. Innovators and creative thinkers have the opportunity to convert visionary concepts into workable opportunities for financial and social problems. It comes with a prize sum of $10,000 and the winning ideas will be nurtured to become marketable, and will also receive technical support.

Hackaholics is a radical gathering of developers, web designers and creative thinkers interested in building products and developing solutions to improve financial services and other sectors of Nigerian life. We are particularly excited about potential innovations in personal finance, big data, retail banking, mobile payments, risk management, currency and stock trading, investment, regulatory compliance as well as health and the environment.

Winning solutions will stand a chance of being incubated and developed into marketable solutions. Also, the best ideas will get full technical support and funding up to 10,000 USD while talented individuals who will exhibit their agility and innovative thinking during the Hackathon will be approached to work further with the bank, in a full time basis.

Heritage Bank’s introduced its intelligent banking assistant in 2018 to enable its customers perform seamless financial transactions across channels. It recently unveiled the HB Lab, an Accelerator programme for product development teams and technology startups creating solutions to critical problems in Nigeria. It will run for 12 weeks with the winning team receiving $25,000 and mentorship from the Heritage Bank network.

Union Bank in 2017 launched an annual ‘’Innovation Challenge’’ to encourage innovators who are creating innovative solutions to social and business challenges. Last year, in partnership with the Co Creation Hub, it launched ‘’Startup Connect’’ which provides an opportunity for Nigerian businesses creating technology-based solutions for the emerging African market to partner with the bank, and the social innovation lab, for growth. It recently unveiled its Techventures proposition tailored for technology companies to support them in various stages of their lifecycle, with access to Venture Capital funding, Business Advisory, Mentorship and Accelerator Partnership.

Diamond Bank pioneered this trend with its Diamond Yello partnership with MTN that saw it acquire over a million customers. Last year, the bank launched Dreamville, a gamified platform powered by Microsoft for kids, to learn financial skills. Her Ada Chatbot was a game-changer in offering the unique customer experience, causing other banks to deploy chatbot services on their platforms, targeting the tech-savvy generation.

The bank of the future will be a technology company, which will utilize data analytics to offer personalized real-time financial services, to its customers, no matter where they are located. It will likely operate mainly with limited physical branches, unbounded by locations – rural or urban, thereby promoting financial inclusion for all. Some banks in Nigeria are already redesigning their strategies to key into this redesign which has become evident to technology leaders. For these banks, technology does not just run them, technology is transforming them, and that is great.

Wema Bank on ALAT Now

Naspers has a market capitalization of close to $100 billion, about 25% of the total value of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), and more than 3x the value of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. But Naspers has more than $50 billion dissipation value since its $100 billion, in JSE, is way below its total market values in all its properties across the globe. For example, the market value of its Chinese super-app Tencent is $133 billion. Because of this weighting paralysis, Naspers has to leave Africa, to list in Europe.

In this Tekedia Daily, I explain why it is time for Africa to merge its major exchanges into one. Unless we do so, we will still remain playgrounds where the likes of Jumia, Transsion (makers of Tecno phones), will do business here and never list because they cannot simply do same.

LinkedIn Comments on Feed

1. just seeing this. Most African countries still believe that stock exchanges are national champions and must remain so. We have failed to realize that globally stock exchanges are internationally oriented businesses and the international competition guarantees a race to the top. ICE group has stakes from NYSE to Euronext, and this enables it to retain the best businesses. Same with the LSE. The JSE, the KSE and the NSE sadly are still within their national silos and cannot be attractive (as a primary listing venue) to any top-rated investment grade issuer. Naspers is an investment grade business and it must seek an appropriate primary listing home. Even if we do not find the merger of exchanges option attractive, we can enter into strategic partnerships with advanced exchanges. For instance: to develop its derivatives exchange, Bursa Malaysia entered into a strategic partnership with the CME (giving CME 25% equity). Well, I don’t need to tell you how advanced BMD currently is, especially in relation to Islamic derivatives.
2. A very brilliant idea. African countries should hurry up and stop dealing with the world as individual, subscale players. In this case, an African stock exchange will be better capitalised, structurally stronger and institutionally safer from sovereign risks. The EU already shows the benefits of pooled sovereignty and that it can work.
3. The idea of merging major stock exchanges within Africa is one that really worth exploring, nothing really to lose, but certainly there’s so much to gain. Since it’s about markets, the framework can be pushed through AU with the currency of trade first denominated in dollars, until Africa agrees on single local currency. Most problems in Africa require scale and sizable capital to be able to confront them. The idea of individual countries looking towards China is not really a viable and sustainable solution, we need to reimagine and rethink a grand African Policy on economy.

• The anthills are not built by elephants but by the collective efforts of the little rejected ants.
• – African Proverb.

Sure, no one is rejected. But I want everyone to learn how to partner and collaborate.

In Nigeria, we are not used to partnership. Everyone wants to do his or her own thing. Sure, our legal systems are extremely inadequate to protect people. The implication is that most hate to collaborate and partner with others. That is a mistake.

Many Nigerian banks went under during the consolidation program of Prof C. Soludo (former Central Bank of Nigeria governor) largely because some owners did not want to band together. Some companies in Nigeria could have been saved if the spirits of mergers and acquisition (M&A) are alive in the nation. Take a trip to Aba, Osogbo and Kano, many of those failed businesses could have been saved if the owners had come together to build a better single company. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, that does not happen.

https://www.tekedia.com/learn-to-partner-in-nigeria-your-business-with-go-further/

Apple unveiled many services today – TV channel dedicated to publishing cutting-edge content, subscription gaming, news and TV services. It also announced a credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs and MasterCard. If you use Apple products and shop in the Apple ecosystem, there is no reason not to get the Apple credit card which offers up to 3% cashback.

Apple is partnering with Goldman Sachs to make its own credit card due out this summer — no plastic required. Apple Card will be available on all iOS devices in the Wallet app. It has a rewards system that adds 2% of any Apple Pay purchase amount directly back to the Apple wallet as cash. The deposits are made daily, and the reward goes up to 3% for purchases of Apple products and down to 1% for purchases made with the physical card.

Every purchase needs a fingerprint or face-identification confirmation. For privacy reasons, Apple said it doesn’t track where payments are made or for how much. The budgeting features are done on device, and Apple said it will not sell user information to third-parties.

An optional physical card is available, but in typical Apple fashion, it’s a laser-etched titanium rectangle. Apple likes to be minimalistic when it comes to design, so there is no expiration date, card number or security code on the card — only in the app. Cook said he believed the card would be “the most significant change in the credit card experience in 50 years.”

LinkedIn Comment on Feed

1. Apple has landed with Evolution 3.0, and just from unveiling alone Apple is already cornering and locking up substantial market share in that space. That of Apple Card could tempt one to ask, why hasn’t any firm thought of it this way before? Perception! Apple occasionally doesn’t do ordinary things, but rather it does the seemingly ordinary thing in an extraordinary manner. Of all the services unveiled, that of Card is likely to become the new world order, leading to rethinking and reimagining in several quarters. Again, Apple has demonstrated that it’s not your everyday corporations, that whenever it wants to change the basis of competition, it manages to make you think and feel differently. We wait to see how the amalgam of services would change its fortunes. Oprah Winfrey ‘finished’ it during the unveiling, “They are in a billion pockets”. That’s actually where Apple is starting from, suddenly it’s a hit!
2. Yeah, Apple has proved again to be a category king in their line of business. I have always wondered why a company has not come up with a single card in Nigeria where you could link your Bank accounts and use different codes to access / call up say Bank A, Bank B etc instead of carrying 4 to 5 different ATM cards. This will be interesting to see in Nigeria. Whoever is able, can take up this challenge if you can, but remember me when it comes to fruition.
3. Without CSV, expiration date, that card will be limited to the Apple eco system alone. If this is the case, how does this differ from a store card? I need to ship on Amazon or pay the extras of hotel bill, or the doctors bills. This is just additional plastic weight in our wallets and purse. Just an enhancement of the traditional store card with an apple logo print
   1. First the card exists as a digital and plastic version. Then the card can be used wherever Apple Pay is accepted. So the question is if you own a business, does apple compete well with the likes of visa, AmEx…? If it’s fees are lower, I will make sure I have it at my point of sale. You the customer of both me and apple will use the card at my business and apple will give you 3% back. Which is just one of the offerings. It’s also competing on interest rates. But it can do that as it has its ecosystem which other financial giants don’t have. It is expanding its “value per Apple ID”
   2. My Comment: If you click and read, the card has a PLASTIC which enables you to just use as any other card in the world – Visa, Mastercard, Amex. So, it is not restricted to Apple world. The notion that without expiration date, CCV and card number written on a card makes it not usable outside Apple ecosystem is not correct. Apple can put those in the chip and keep all clean. But it will have APIs for startups that want to process payments online for Apple card users since there is no account number to enter. That is my point of insight because that will change the current flow where users are expected to enter numbers, date etc.