Dr. William Derban, Director of Financial Inclusion, Fidelity Bank
Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited last Thursday at Agbogbloshie in Accra outdoored agency banking called Fidelity Smart Agents, which allows the bank to use shops and supermarkets as its agents.
Additionally, the bank announced that prospective customers could open bank accounts called Fidelity Smart Accounts and receive instant ATM cards within five minutes.
After a float in some principal streets of Accra, the bank, in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaftf?r Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, also organized free medical screening and counseling for the public and also educated the participants on the need to join the agency banking initiative.
The bank rolled out similar programmes in Kumasi last week.
The Director of Financial Inclusion Dr. William Derban, gave the assurance that the agency banking initiative would be made available across the country.
Explaining the concept to traders and residents at Agbogbloshie, Head of Agency Banking at Fidelity Bank, Hudson Emmanuel Opoku-Mensah said in spite of the presence of various banks in the country, majority of Ghanaians were unbanked.
He said, ?Fidelity Bank took it upon itself to research into the situation and realized that proximity and complexity of opening bank accounts were contributory factors to the high unbanked population in Ghana.?
The Head of Smart Account Sales at Fidelity Bank, Agyemang Duah Agyekum, said the Smart Account has been designed especially for people who have heavy business schedules.
?The Fidelity Smart Account is designed to provide a full bank account in less than five minutes; it offers clients the opportunity to have both a current and a savings account.
He said the Smart Agents are duly trained and certified by bank to conduct financial transactions on its behalf, adding ?services available to Smart Account holders include Cash deposit, Cash withdrawal, Mobile Top up, Funds transfer, Bill payment, Card less transactions and Transfer money to e-wallet.?
By William Yaw Owusu
