Global accounting firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) urged banks here on Wednesday to adopt a customer-centric approach in their business models in order to survive the looming competition in the very near future.
It said banks also need to optimize distribution while simplifying business models in order to make them customer friendly.
This was contained in the results of ?Ghana Banking Survey? 2015 conducted by the firm, themed ?Bank of the Future: what bank customers want to experience by 2020?.
Senior partner of PWC Ghana Vish Ashiagbor explaining that the findings in Ghana were not far different from the results in the PWC global survey, making the point that the Ghanaian economy and industry was quite integrated into the global sector.
The survey framed scenarios to test customers? perspectives on issues expected to be on the front burner of customer expectations by 2020. These included Security, convenience, and speed in service, simplicity, affordability, product variety, credit availability and familiarity.
The response received from respondents revealed that Customer Security (83 percent) and convenience (82 percent) came tops in customer expectations of their banks in the next five years.
To achieve this, Kwame Akuffo, Senior Manager at PWC Ghana who presented the findings said the banks would need to invest in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) which has the ability to ease bank transactions.
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?Customers want banking technology to be used to support the transfer of more of control over their banking life to them,? Akuffo stated.
In addition to that, he said the bank customers also wanted traditional branches to be de-stressed as principal arenas for banking; while other channels, including mobile devices are encouraged.
?Customers want bank staff to be able to detect unusual account activity and alert them on time,? Akuffo added.
In his intervention, Franklin Belnyeh, Head of Banking Supervision at the Bank of Ghana cautioned that technology is a double edged sword with the potential to deliver convenience, speed of service and affordability, it can pose security challenges.
?Cyber fraud, arising from technology-related or technology-driven innovation is the greatest threat to customer confidence in the banking system,? Belnyeh pointed out.
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He admonished the banks therefore to make the appropriate investments in technology, including building a resilient ICT infrastructure, although this will costs money.
Belnyeh said another issue that this raises is the issues about scale of banks, adequate capitalization, and the possession of the right skill sets.
The official said there was a new banking bill in yet to be passed by parliament to deal with the new challenges presented by new developments in the sector.
Representing the Ghana Association of Bankers, Alhassan Andani said the banks had more work to do in view of the survey, but added that the banks could surmount the new challenges in the sector to be able to sustain customer satisfaction.
Andani who is also the Managing Director of Stanbic Bank local branch of Standard Bank of South Africa agreed with the survey that the economy of Ghana and the banking sector had a bright future looking at the current fundamentals.
Source : Xinhua
