Access Bank moves to double customer base to 65m by 2022 with savings reward campaign

Access Bank Plc has unleashed a savings reward campaign that will improve financial access to Nigerians and more than double the bank’s current customer base to 65 million by year 2022.

This is according to a statement from the bank made available to business a.m Tuesday.

The campaign, tagged ‘Awoof Berekete’, is a savings reward scheme rolled out in a quest to ensure that every Nigerian has access to financial services as well as to promote its Access Mobile Wallet service, the bank said.

The bank explained that the campaign which runs from August to November 2019, will see customers rewarded handsomely weekly for using their Access Mobile Wallet to make transactions.

For instance, customers can get 20% cash back up to N1,000 when they purchase airtime via Access Money Wallet as well as receive 10 times their initial deposit (up to N10,000) when they fund their Access Money Wallet and save for 7 days, the bank said.

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“The Access Mobile Wallet is an electronic wallet service which allows users to save, transfer, and receive money. It provides access to a wide range of financial services offered by Access Bank and access to all the Bank’s branches and agents nationwide,” Access Bank explained in the statement.

Commenting on the campaign, Chinedu Onuoha, head, business development and planning at Access Bank, said: “We are the largest bank in terms of customer base. Cumulatively, we have about 30 to 31 million customers. By 2022, we intend that this should be a minimum of 65 million customers and to achieve this, we came up with Awoof Berekete, which is another way to reward our customers.”

According to Onuoha, awoof berekete intends to encourage those whose accounts have been dormant or inactive due to various reasons – insufficient documentation, BVN etc.

He further stated that: “What we are essentially doing is incentivizing them (customers) to be more productive.

Sometimes you pay N200 as transport fare to go and pay somebody N2,000. What we are saying is that you can stay in the comfort of your home and do that transfer; also that market woman on her way home can drop the vegetables for you. Those kinds of things can happen and help people promote efficiency and also make them live better lives.”

According to him, the Access Mobile Wallet was designed for customers, who for some reason, do not have all that is needed to be able to provide for the typical KYC documentation such as electricity bill and address verification.

“There are some Nigerians, yes, they are good citizens, who work every day to earn a living but they don’t live in places where you have electricity bill, address and all of those of things. So what we have done for access to money wallet is to say just come; give us your name, give us your date of birth, give us your gender and tell us your age. And once you are an adult and a legitimate citizen, we give you that wallet. The wallet is not a physical wallet; it is like an account but most of the transactions you need to do will be through your mobile phone and also by going to our agent outlets across the country. So that is what we are trying to do with Access Mobile Wallet – to deepen financial inclusion,” he stated.

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Explaining how the service works, Onuoha said that a customer has to dial *901# to get started or visit any Access Bank branch/ Agent location. He pointed out that the service allows customers to transfer money, pay bills, top-up airtime among other features.

He also spoke about the bank’s successful inroad into agency banking, stating that Access Bank currently has 20,000 agents across the country.

“Our desire is to place ourselves as close as possible to the customer, so that if he needs to do any transaction, all he needs to do is to walk in and do his transaction,” he said.

Responding to a question on how Access Bank deals with customer complaints especially regarding failed transaction, Onuoha stated that the Bank has made a lot of investments in technology and in its contact centre.

He said: “You will agree with me that generally in terms of transfers there has been some level of improvement today compared to what it was, three or five years ago. It will continue to get better. For Access Bank, we ensure that we make investment in the best technology, make sure we partner with the best telcos; make sure we employ the right people also to ensure that we are always available and that we are able to service our customers. But if all of these fail, we have the largest contact centre in the country today, almost 700 agents. So the customer can always call in there and get remediation,” he concluded.