CR2, an Ireland-based company, is set on improving the omnichannel banking in Nigeria; this, according to the company, will help to decrease cost and increase revenues through integrated self-service channels. Mike Brady, the Chief Operating Office, CR2, said that the company’s intention is to bring innovative omnichannel banking solutions to financial institutions in the country in order to raise their incomes; given that the Dublin-based firm and that the team would visit customers and prospects in the country. According to him, recent trends and consumer demands in the Nigerian market are fuelling the need for banking innovation. Brady added that the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) numbers in the country have rocketed from 865 to over 12,700 in the past 10 years, with an increase of 19 per cent from the end of 2012 to end of 2013 alone. He said that the company’s existing clients such as Diamond Bank had benefited greatly from adopting the company’s integrated self-service management platform and the current market trends. The Director of Sales, Africa, CR2, Andrew Chisembele, said turning ATMs in the country to smart ATMs that are capable of offering several self-service products would help Nigerian banks to shore up their revenue. He said a number of African banks had adopted the smart ATM model, which had helped them to generate huge revenues. He said, “CR2 assists banks to reduce costs and increase revenues through best-of-breed self-service delivery. BankWorld, CR2’s multichannel platform, delivers a complete suite of integrated channels including ATM, internet, mobile, kiosk and IVR through one single unified self-service platform. As a result, it provides a single, consolidated view of all of a customer’s accounts at every point of client contact.” The Managing Director, GlobalInfoSwift, CR2’s local partner in Nigeria, Mr. Solomon Edun, said considering the huge investment that Nigerian banks had made on ATMs, there was the need to enable their ATMs to offer more products that could help to generate revenues running into millions and billions of naira. Edun, who said the era of investing in more brick-and-mortar banking halls were over, said the trend now was for banks to leverage technology to offer better services and generate additional incomes. This, he said, had become more imperative for Nigerian banks in the face of dwindling revenue occasioned by harsh operating environment and the challenging economic situation.
