ABSA COMMITS TO PARTNER WITH INNOVATIVE START-UPS

Absa Bank Tanzania Head of Customer Experience and Digital Banking, Samuel Mkuyu (second right), makes a presentation on enhanced customer experience with digital innovation during a one-day forum organised by Hindsight Ventures in partnership with Absa Bank in Dar es Salaam today. Looking on (from right) is Echo Tanzania Managing Director, Aashiq Shariff, Tigo Head of Mobile Financial Services, Faith Pella and Hindsight Ventures Founder & CEO, Ajay Ramasubramaniam.

Absa Bank Tanzania is committed to creating partnerships with tech start-ups in the country in order to create business ventures on a win-win situation, an official of the multinational financial institutions said today in Dar es Salaam during a clinic organized for start-ups to showcase projects and learn.

The event, dubbed thought leadership Event, Enhanced Customer Experience with Digital and Innovation, focused on how digital transformation can be rolled out hand-in hand with customer experience,it was co-organised by the bank and Hindsight Venture, a technological innovation and solutions firm.

“Our aim is to explore options through which we can partner with start-ups and co-create and co-commercialize products, said Samuel Mkuyu, Head of Customer Experience and Digital Banking at Absa, adding that the financial conglomerate had long initiated the process of identifying potential start-up partners.

He said that from the presentations that were made by the participating start-ups on their projects, they will analyse the presentations with a view to exploring potential opportunities and ideas for commercialization that can be turned into partnership between the bank and the start-ups.

“Our aim is not just to dish out money to the start-ups, the basis for our cooperation is that we turn the ideas into joint projects, in which both parties benefit, said Mkuyu, pointing to the recently- launched appointment arranging software, Virtual Branch Engagement Solution as a joint project with FastHub Solutions.

He said that the bank was committed to giving priority to digital innovation that creates sustainable solutions with the value to the customer being placed first as opposed to solutions that do not speak to Customers lifestyles. This is a stand that is testified to the recent award of the bank as “The Best Financial Institution in Using ICT” by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

The core focus of the session was punctuated by a lively discussion led by panelists on burning challenges to customer experience across multiple industries and how the role of digital an innovation in addressing these gaps. The discussions shared a wide array of knowledge from multiple stakeholders on on the current global imperative to synchronize the drive to launch digital innovation with improvements in customer experience.

Speaking at the event, Hindsight Ventures Country Lead, Paul Mandele, shared the importance of the timing of the event and how such forums were necessary to bridge the gaps in the ecosystem and to drive digital innovation in Tanzania as per projected growth, which if not addressed now will see start-ups faced with challenges that hinder successful take-off of envisioned projects as most founders are fresh graduates with little capital, industry knowledge , limited data insights and necessary skill sets to bridge this gap.

“Start-ups usually lack the right stakeholders to partner with that causes them to usually make it alone with no established business case models to learn from” said Mandele.