Designing A Conceptual Digital Bank In Ghana
Trying to design a “challenger bank” in Ghana
Background
The Ghana digital finance space continues to grow. With things becoming more digital and features like Mobile Money continuing to grow exponentially, banks and other institutions need to be aware of the changing trends.
The Bank Of Ghana, aware of this growing trend of digital transactions, recently introduced legislation to help with the growth and regulation of the fintech space.
Now, banks in Ghana are slowly moving more towards digital solutions. Banking institutions like Standard Chartered, Stanbic, Fidelity Bank amongst others have been pushing their banking apps to consumers to help encourage more online transactions.
Although banks are looking to be more digital, most still lean towards marketing to big companies and clientele. In a country like Ghana with a young population, there seems to be a gap in reaching out to more young entrepreneurs, young working people and early startups.
Young people tend to be more internet savvy and are more likely to use online and digital solutions than having to go through physical or manual processes.
In view of this, I wondered what a bank looking to go fully digital might look like in order to attract the young and upcoming generation and online companies.
I started to work on a concept for what a digital bank of the future would look like for young people and others.
The Current Environment
Most banks are now adopting to the digital age. They’re releasing mobile apps for their customers to use for online transactions.
But as far as starting the banking application process, most of the process is manual.
If you’re signing up with a bank, you have to go through the manual process which includes physically filling out an application form and satisfying the ID requirements. The Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process can be a bit cumbersome with banks requesting IDs, proof of residence (which require a utility bill or other proof of address) and long forms to fill out.
Another thing to note, from a previous research project I did, I observed that most (young) people aren’t really into savings when it comes to using their bank account and tend to use both current and savings account as “current” accounts.
As stated before, banks aren’t as “encouraging” when it comes to targeting young people.
In the UK, challenger banks like Monzo and Revolut are making the headway in attracting more young people because that demographic tend to be more digital. The average age of sign ups for challenger banks is around 31, compared to 48 years old for traditional banks.
With all this in mind, a digital bank or challenger bank in Ghana needs to skew towards more younger persons and have a unique user experience which makes the application process attractive and seamless as possible.
Designing The Concept
This is all conceptual but it’s a blueprint for how to create a digital banking experience
Streamlining The KYC Process
Standard Chartered Bank recently made it possible for users to open an account with their mobile app without having to visit a physical branch. So far, it’s the only bank that has achieved this.
If we were to design a fully digital bank, the first thing would be to design a process where opening an account is easy and streamlined as well as making the KYC process easier.
In our flow, the process is as simple as possible:
- Create a short form which only asks for essential information from the user
- Let me scan and upload an official ID using their phone for verification
- Let them take and upload a selfie to verify that they and their ID are authentic
Companies in Ghana like Appruve and BACE group are helping with facial and ID recognition which can help speed up the process of verification especially with the KYC process. Implementing Facial recognition features will be beneficial in speeding up the account opening process.
Main Features
So what features should a digital banking solution have?
Let’s start with the basics: It needs to have the ability to — Receive Money, Send Money and Top Up Their Account.
In addition to the basics, having other essential services would be beneficial.
Services like Mobile Data And Airtime, Utilities (Electricity etc), and TV Services are definitely a must have.
Features like Scan QR code and Banking Services are also included.
Adding Payment Services and Features
There would be an assumption that users would already have registered for prior payment services so it would be best to give them the option to add those services onto their banking app.
With our concept, we give the user the option of adding their Bank Cards, Bank Accounts, and Mobile Money to the app.
At the moment, Banks in Ghana don’t have Open APIs for integration where a user’s bank account can be debited online for a payment. But since we’re considering the future, we’re assuming that it would be in place for easy integration.
With an Open API in place, users would sign in to their bank account and approve the use of their account for payment as well as check for transactions on that specific bank account.
Cash Is Still King
Even though going digital is the future, cash will still be in heavy use in the short team. With that in mind, use of a physical card will be essential for customers to take out cash from local ATMs.
With our design, there will be an option for users to order a Physical Card (for a fee) which will be linked to their account for use at ATMs.
This is just a small example of what a future challenge bank in Ghana could look like. Technologies like Facial Recognition and Open APIs would be very beneficial.
Creating a challenger or purely digital bank could have its own unique challenges when it comes to legislation but the Bank of Ghana is trying to push for more online transactions and digital services in the coming years.
Joseph-Albert Kuuire is a UX/UI Designer in Accra, Ghana. Currently working as a Business Development Manager for Flutterwave in Ghana
