Zenith Bank launches mobile banking solution

Peter Amangbo, Zenith Bank GMD

Zenith Bank Plc has launched a new mobile banking solution to make banking simpler and interesting. The bank’s *966# Eazybanking solution, which was recently launched into the Nigerian market, will complement the effort of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to build a cashless economy and enhance financial inclusion.

The Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) banking solution enables people to perform financial transactions on all known mobile phones (Feature, Smartlite or Smart), without having to go on the net or download a mobile app, a statement from the bank explained.

USSD is a Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication technology used to send texts between a mobile phone and an application program in the owner network and the adoption of this technology allows people to do a lot of banking transactions even on the most basic of mobile phones.

According to the bank, the simple solution allows anyone with a mobile phone to do transactions such as buy airtime, transfer money, pay bills, check your balance and even open a Zenith Bank account, anytime and anywhere. “It positions the bank for future growth as internet penetration continues to deepen in Africa and the use of mobile phones becomes the new and preferred banking channel.

The USSD banking solution will complement the Zenith Mobile Banking application, already well accepted among its discerning customers. “Customers register by dialing *966# from their registered mobile numbers and following a simple set-up as prompted by a string of instructions after which they can easily carry out banking activities anytime, anywhere, from the comfort of their mobile phones.

“To open a Zenith Bank account, potential customers are required to dial *966*0# and follow the prompts, following which an account number is automatically generated for the customer and they can start running the account after a short visit to any of the bank’s branches,” it added.

It stated that the introduction of the banking solution will further enhance Zenith Bank’s reputation and excite its stakeholders, especially as a recent research by Juniper Research showed that one in seven people (one billion people) in the world used their phones to perform at least one banking transaction as at the end of 2015. This is projected to grow by 37 per cent to two billion of the world’s adult population by 2020.