Ecobank, Total Nigeria Collaborate on Agency Banking

• Ecobank, Total Nigeria Collaborate on Agency Banking

Ecobank Nigeria Plc has announced its partnership with Total Nigeria Limited to offer agency banking services at Total filling stations across the country.

The lender said in a statement that it would begin with 100 stations, carefully selected to enable members of the public to carry out financial transactions such as deposits, withdrawals and account opening at the outlets known as ‘Ecobank Xpress Points’.

It added that transfers to Ecobank and other banks, bill payments, and airtime top-up would be carried out with ease at the selected locations.

The Executive Director, Consumer Banking, Ecobank Nigeria, Carol Oyedeji, described the deployment of Ecobank Xpress Points via Total Nigeria locations as an extension of the bank’s distribution and financial inclusion strategy to take banking services to the doorstep of every Nigerian and African.

She stated that the outlets would offer convenient and accessible financial services in a cost-effective and secure manner.

According to her, Ecobank is determined to extend the reach of its banking services to customers in remote and rural locations with its agency banking initiative.

She said, “To deliver our strategy of reaching 100 million customers by 2020, we have created innovative platforms, products and services, which are already serving a much larger customer base.

“These agent locations will support some of the innovative services we have introduced to the market such as Xpress Cash, which allows customers to withdraw cash at Automated Teller Machines without their cards and transfer within and across 33 countries via the Ecobank Mobile App.”

The General Manager, Sales and Marketing, Total Nigeria, Adesua Adewole, stated that a team would develop a network of service stations everywhere in Nigeria daily, to bring Total closer to its 200,000 daily customers.

She described the partnership with Ecobank as an illustration of one of Total’s strategies that would strengthen the cashless initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Adewole stated that some of Ecobank’s agency banking partners were already offering banking services in Lagos.