PostBank has installed a total of sixty (60) smart ATMs at all its branches. This is the highest number of smart ATMs for any bank in the country. For starters, what exactly is a smart ATM and why is this significant for your stakeholders- especially customers?
Essentially, ATMs are tellers – I prefer to call them robotic tellers because by and large, they replace the teller in many ways. Unlike humans – the smart ATM does not get tired, doesn’t get angry or emotional and works 24/7, so we expect a better customer service experience. But that does not mean we do not need tellers or the human touch, but we will now redeploy our people to other roles such as sales, customer care and client advisory services.
Smart ATMs do much more than the ordinary ATMS because initially, those machines would only give you cash, but now you can do much more for example you can deposit up to UGX. 30 million and the ATM will count the money, in multi-dominations, pick out the fake or damaged notes and sort it and deposit it directly onto your account and it will reflect in real-time, send a message to your phone and a receipt.
So, it means the bank’s processes of taking cash from the ATMs and replenishing the ATMs goes down as customers are withdrawing, and others are depositing. Any savings by the bank will eventually trickle down to the customer in form of a reduced cost of money. For the customers, there is enhanced convenience in form of 24/7 banking.
The future of banking is robotics because, for example, the ATMs can talk to you. In future, we want to put in more language options such as Kiswahili, Lugbara, Luganda among other local languages. For now, you can deposit and withdraw cash. You are also able to do card-less withdrawals using your phone APP that generates tokens that can be used to withdraw the cash directly – but the token can also be sent to another party to withdraw the cash on our ATMs across the country – so it is some kind of money transfer as well.
For example, a UPDF officer serving in Somalia, no longer has to leave his/her ATM card at home – whenever they are on a tour of duty. They can access their accounts online via the App and generate tokens to send back home to their loved ones that can be redeemed at all our ATMs across the country.
This service is very affordable, for instance, if you are sending UGX. 2 million, we only charge UGX. 2,000.
The new smart ATMs also allow for PIN setting & PIN resetting at the ATM and instant card issuance at any of our branches on account opening. Withdraw limits have also been increased to UGX. 3 million for a single transaction.
So, in summary the smart ATMs offer so much more to the customer and the bank, both presently and the many things we plan to add thereon.
We do understand that the rollout of the smart ATMS, is part of the larger digitization agenda that started about two years ago. How far has this process gone and what have been some of the immediate benefits to your stakeholders, especially customers and shareholders?
Indeed, it is part of a larger transformation journey and part of our big digital agenda which is not an end on its own but rather is part of our customer experience transformation commitment. We started with revamping our self-service channels including the mobile App, the USSD code *263# and internet banking. We also fixed issues around the issuance of ATM cards that are now issued in-branch instantly. This was then followed by the replacement of our old and worn-out ATM network with the smarter new-age ones.
For all this to be possible, we also had to upgrade our core banking system and upgrade our ATM switch to be able to do 24/7 banking because that is the nature of the business. We have also upgraded almost the whole digital infrastructure and links to all our branches, adding more connections such that if one network is off, there is an alternative. For example, if the MTN network fails, there is an automatic change over to Airtel- unless there is a major occurrence such as roadworks affecting all the connections in the area.
Winnie Kamusiime to lead new secretariat as elected President of Uganda Marketers SocietyIsn’t this driving your costs through the roof?
Well, yes, it is quite expensive, it’s like building a foundation, it’s been quite expensive but it’s the only option, given where we found the bank and where we want it to go. We would have taken the option of not investing, but to what end if in the next 3-4 years you can’t grow because the foundation is weak?
In terms of return on investment, we are already seeing enhanced efficiencies, and better customer experiences because now more than 70% of our clients can self-serve outside the branch. We are also seeing significant growth in customer deposits without having to necessarily increase headcount.
PostBank, last December got a tier-one Commercial Banking License from the Bank of Uganda. For starters, what has changed at the Bank in terms of the value proposition and services obtainable?
Being a tier-one bank means that we can offer more products to the market, and we can join the interbank borrowing and lending market. We are now part of the clearing house meaning that our cheques for example mature faster. We previously used to clear through Citibank and Stanbic. We basically can do all the things that commercial banks can do.
Looking forward, with all these developments, what can the customer expect now and 2-5 years and beyond?
With the digital foundation we have laid, next, we want to do a massive digital acquisition. We are building something we call a digital wallet. The wallet is the future of banking because when you talk about things like digital money and moving money digitally, you need a platform, and the wallet gives you the capability to do that.
We are now in the fourth industrial revolution and within the fourth industrial revolution, we are talking about so many things like augmented reality, quantum computing and so much more, so in this wallet, there are products we want to drive towards social economic development, for example, telemedicine.
Banking needs to move away from the way we know it, to what we call banking as a platform. What do I mean? We need to build platforms that can do a couple of things, banking being just one of them. With this wallet solution, customers will be able to access and unlock so many things such as telemedicine from a raft of healthcare providers on the platform, buy and or get insurance advice.
PostBank customers will eventually also be able to list services and products, trade amongst themselves & share opportunities and PostBank will facilitate the payments. Customers can also borrow digitally to take advantage of the vast opportunities therein. This is the future of banking and we have built the right foundation.
The future is very exciting for the bank and our customers.