Nigeria’s First Branchless Bank, SunTrust Opens for Business
Months after securing regional banking license from the Central bank of Nigeria, CBN, SunTrust Bank will be opening its first branch to the general public for the very first time on August 15 2016.
By reffering to itself as a ‘financial technology bank’, the major fulcrum of the bank’s service is technology. It will be looking at reducing emphasis on physical branches, which is the norm.
Speaking on the opening of the bank, Muhammed Jubrin, SunTrust Bank’s CEO, “our vision is to offer high quality retail and commercial banking services in a modern and innovative manner. We will use technology and a new way of thinking to provide banking services to many people and businesses in Nigeria for whom access to a bank account has previously been impossible”.
“We will offer telephone, mobile and Internet banking underpinned by the traditional banking ethics of probity and integrity.” he said
“Our services will be available to our customers 24 hours daily, seven days a week and from anywhere in the world where there is a good Internet service. Even our data centre is outsourced, this way we will not have the overbearing requirement to put on the generator at our locations”
The emphasis on technology will help the bank to save close to NGN100m-NGN120 million“we will not be emphasising physical security as we are making serious investment in cyber security instead.” he said.
SunTrust Bank and Providus Bank received regional banking license from the CBN in May.
