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NALBank's E-Banking Initiative

September 7, 2005
Posted to the web September 7, 2005

Omoh Gabriel


E-Banking in Nigeria has been in an upbeat mode. The financial marketplace has been actively promoting their online publications and functionalities while growth in mobile phone and internet penetration in Nigeria continues to increase.

The pro-technology sentiment of Nigerians is helping to feed the e-banking growth that is evident by the mushrooming of numerous electronic service providers. This on-going internet development growth phase augers well for e-banking to mature into a way of life in Nigeria. On-line banking and the web channel are here to stay. Financial services rely on multiple distribution channels and e-banking represents the channel of the future. Success stories around e-banking have taken shape through a mix of innovation and experience. NALBank PLC has joined the list of banks in the country offering e-banking services. The bank says that in the next few days it will launch four new e-banking products. They include NALMobile, NALTELE, NAL PC BANKER and NALNET.

According to the bank, the win-win implementation of its e-banking product not only requires high internet penetration rates and stable infrastructures, but more importantly, for companies to realise the powerful revenue opportunity of this business arm vis-a-vis the traditional brick and mortar system of operation. The services are to be provided by the bank free of surcharges that is the hallmark of most other e-banking products.Therefore NAL's four e-banking products are seamlessly integrated with the core 'traditional' banking services thereby making the online experience truly holistic for the customer.

According to Mrs Chinedun Orisakwe, Head, Private and Consumer Banking Group and Anyalenkeya Benedict, Information Systems of NAL bank, Mobile phones, Laptops, Computers and Web channels are needed to market the bank's products and services, present corporate information about their global businesses and provide customers with personal financial management tools and banking platforms.

In a nutshell, NAL core online offerings should provide customers to: Access their financial information anytime, anywhere, Transact real-time business, Make empowered online financial decisions. Additionally, value-add extensions of e-banking services are to be offered by NAL to compliment the bank's core online services. For example, functionalities like alerts offer customers to schedule notifications and account balances or self-select specific account related events. Based on the preferences, customers are notified as and when the alerts are triggered or when they send SMS message for the position of their accounts. Such services help ensure higher levels of customer convenience, satisfaction and open other relationship building opportunities.

Mrs Orisakwe disclosed that NAL customer will forget the quintessential experience of waiting for paper statements and embrace one of 21st century's contempo realities - Paperless Statements through their mobile phones from any of the bank branches across the country. The bank hopes that with the introduction of online statement delivery, paperless statements will become the norm in the banking industry in the country. Financial institutions else where brand paperless statements under different service tags ranging from E-Statements, Email Statements, PDF Statements, Online Statements and so on.

However, the end objective of all paperless statements is to save time and reduce paper work. This is what NAL bank is bring into the door step of Nigerians. Paperless statements look just like paper versions and should typically be accessible much before the paper versions reach you via snail mail. They can be made available through emails, e-banking services or over websites and are usually free of charge. NAL four based products will bring to the door steps of customers. Speed, Convenience and Ease. Fastest way to track your finances and manage your accounts online at any time. Get More Organised. View, save or print your statements as and when you like and never misplace your statements again. Eliminate Clutter.

Paperless statements significantly reduce the amount of mail and paperwork you collect. Using NAL bank e-banking product is going ahead to take advantage of paperless statement services en-route to a paperless life.Mrs Orisakwe says customer using the bank service do not need to worry about spy and hackers as the bank has enough good firewall and software to combat pop-ups, spy ware and viruses. It also enable account holders to track their accounts. The account could be use to settle bills regularly as in some countries paying bills online is as natural as using email instead of writing a letter: it is quicker, easier and best of all, free.So if you are tired of piling paper clutter and managing due dates for bills, get ready to cross the border into electronic bill payment. You will be happy to learn that online bill payment is not only easy, but NALbank is offering the service for free. Mrs Orisakwe said "Well my definition of this e-banking is a system whereby our customers are able to kind of carry the bank with them wherever they are and transact business from the comfort of their homes or their offices without coming to the bank. We are making it possible for them to be able to transact business without coming to the bank premises.

"The bank is about to lunch four new key banking product. Now the first one is the NAL MOBILE, that will enable our customers to carry out their transactions with their mobile phones, their GSM phones. The other product is the NAL TELE bank it will enable the customers carry out their transactions with a telephone. Another product is the NAL PC BANKER you can carry out your transaction from your lap top or from your computer and then we have the NAL NET which help the customers carry out banking on the internet. So these are the four products we are lunching right now".

The NAL mobile will be available anywhere in the country that receives service provider's signal it is therefore not for the urban dwellers as most would want to believe. She said "I would really want to disagree with you, because my father calls me from the village with his mobile phone, and I think that especially MTN has been able to reach out to the rural areas. So I would not really agree mobile phones are strictly used in the urban areas so it will still accommodate people in the rural area and I know that telephone operators are moving in everyday, covering more grounds in the rural areas". NAL MOBILE is going to be using the SMS, that is the text message as it is much easier to send a text. You do not usually have texts breaking as much as you have call droppings.

The service is fraud proof as every customer of the bank using the service is going to be allocated with a PIN number and a pass code which will be known to him, so even if you get somebody's mobile phone, you would not automatically know his PIN number and his pass code, because they are known to him. He does not store them in his phone. The information is not stored in his phone. The network the bank say is protected with fire walls, so it will be very difficult for hackers to get in. the IT driven product.

In the case of the NAL TELE Orisakwe said that all a customer require is access to a phone. "If you have access to a telephone, the customers will be informed of the number to dial. The NAL numbers which will link them to the NAL key banking server. All you need to do is to call any of these numbers, and you will be given instructions, depending on the kind of transaction you want to carry out. You also have to disclose your PIN number and your access code, otherwise the system will not let you carry out your transactions. The problem of cash movement the banker say will be solved with the NAL NET, because with the NAL NET the customers are issued with cards, those cards are ATM cards. So you could use those cards to draw cash from an ATM. So with the NAL NET you can obtain cash without coming to the bank.

Orisakwe said "With mobile banking, you can transfer money to your daughter's account but it has to be with an account in the bank, but you are talking of how she can obtain money without coming to the bank. With the mobile phone, a customer in Lagos can transfer money to any account with the bank any where in the country without going to the bank. That is the difference, you can transfer funds from one account to another, but if you want to obtain cash without coming to the bank that can equally be done through an ATM.

NAL NET on the other hand is internet-based. You can not really use it without the internet, because it is internet-based. You have to log on to the internet and get on the NAL web site and from there you supply your PIN number and your pass code. And it gives you access to your account.

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