Combining channels to help clients transact and save: a case study from Advans Ghana

The 2017 Global Findex study highlighted the need to use new technologies to encourage unbanked clients to use their accounts. In this short article, we will look at how Advans Ghana has helped its clients to transact regularly by offering them convenient new human and digital channels.

Clients make on average 4 transactions on their accounts per month at Advans Ghana

Advans Ghana aims to build a privileged relationship with its clients through combining both high touch and high tech channels so that they can access their accounts easily. Two alternative channels introduced in the past few years, mobile banking, a self-service digital channel, and field tellers, a human channel with a digital solution, have enabled Advans Ghana to be the best performer in the Advans Group in terms of account transactions. Clients at Advans Ghana make on average 4 transactions per month on their accounts and 41% of transactions take place outside of branches.

An innovative mobile banking service

For clients comfortable with transacting alone, Advans Ghana introduced Mobibank in 2015. Digital financial services are on the rise in Ghana with around 40% of the population having a mobile money account and 50% receiving digital payments in 2017. Mobibank is a USSD self-service menu available on a client’s mobile 7 days a week from 5am to 11pm enabling clients to have access when and where they want. 26% of Advans Ghana’s total transactions were made through Mobibank in 2017 with balance enquiries and account to wallet transfers being the most popular. Two thirds of Mobibank clients only save with Advans (no loans). One of the keys to the success for the Mobibank service is ensuring that clients with lower financial literacy are trained on the service from the beginning to ensure uptake.

A face to face field teller service

For clients looking for more flexibility but who prefer to be accompanied in their transactions by a staff member, Advans Ghana introduced a field teller service. The field teller model transforms and modernises the traditional method of Susu collection into a secure service. Thanks to this channel clients can get easy access to their accounts at their home or place of work but through a face to face service, with the Advans field teller depositing clients’ cash securely onto their accounts through a mobile application. Advans Ghana has over 80 field tellers, in urban areas each field teller serves around 60 clients on average with 5,000 active clients using the service in a month. Focus groups have shown that clients are very satisfied with the service because it is flexible and it enables them to build up an everyday relationship with the institution.

Optimising these channels for the future

Offering a combination of channels helps to increase client uptake and use, building clients’ financial literacy and increasing their satisfaction thanks to the fact that they no longer have to travel to branches. Over the years to come, Advans Ghana aims to optimise the use of proximity channels, to ensure that it encourages clients to transact and save regularly, therefore building their financial security.