Nigeria: Appzone Relaunches BankOne, Digital Core Banking Solution for Africa’s Fintechs and Neobanks

The BankOne Platform has been re-engineered with functionality expected to drive the exponential growth of fully digital offerings from new Fintechs across Africa.

Appzone, the Pan-African fintech software provider building proprietary solutions for the continent’s banking and payments industries, has announced the Pan-African launch of BankOne, its digital core banking solution now re-engineered to serve the continent’s leading Fintechs, neobanks and challenger banks.

BankOne’s relaunch follows Appzone’s Series A raise in April 2021, the largest locally led raise in Nigeria which repositioned the organization to roll-out new innovative offerings that help financial institutions function in a fully digital and automated way. Having previously built out functionality to automate and run traditional Banking operations, Appzone is now deploying BankOne as a platform for technology-driven financial institutions intending to adopt a 360-degree digital approach that does not involve physical branches or human interaction.

Originally launched in 2011, BankOne is delivered and run by Appzone Core, a subsidiary of the Appzone Group. The platform played a significant role in the first digitization phase of Nigeria’s financial sector and came to further prominence and adoption as digital challengers and neo-banks began to emerge. As Africa rapidly accelerates towards a fully digital banking future, BankOne is being positioned to provide affordable and purpose-built digital infrastructure to enable this transition.

Speaking on the relaunch of BankOne, the CEO of Appzone Core, Mr. Mudiaga Umukoro said: “For over a decade, BankOne has played an active role in driving the digitization of Nigeria’s financial services industry. The platform has now been repositioned to serve the continent’s growing number of Fintechs and neobanks. BankOne’s major advantages are market fit and affordability which allow financial institutions deliver highly relevant products at a fraction of cost while leveraging our numerous integrations with mainstream payment systems to achieve instant interoperability with other industry players at no extra cost”

Buoyed by the economic and work-place realities emerging due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Africa’s financial sector has aggressively adopted digital banking, with more individuals and organizations bypassing physical structures, paper trails and physical cash in favor of self-service offerings on digital devices. As the continent’s traditional banking system continues to evolve, embracing new platforms, technologies, and architecture, technology-driven offerings from Fintechs on the continent will revolutionize customer experience, crash operating costs and accelerate financial inclusion.

BankOne provides functionality that enables digital Banks to engage customers and deliver services without human interaction. BankOne provides digital equivalents of all product offerings including account opening, card issuance, deposits, payments, and loan origination amongst others. The platform also provides an open platform with developer tools and robust APIs to support the level of innovation and agility required in a highly dynamic and rapidly evolving environment. In addition, Appzone Core has positioned the new offering to support the digital transformation efforts of traditional Banks, many of which are still stuck with legacy systems that limit their ability to compete effectively.

With operations in Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, and Kenya, BankOne currently hosts over 10 million customer accounts with balances totaling $105 million while managing over $650 Million in annual loan disbursements, and $2.9 Billion in total transaction value. Asides managing customer records, loans, deposits, and accounting, BankOne provides an omni-channel self-service platform, USSD interfaces, Payment ecosystem integration, agent banking capabilities, and card management services. These functionalities are available to Fintechs like digital lenders and neobanks, as well as traditional banks like MFIs, Mortgage Banks, Consumer Lenders and Commercial Banks.

Currently, challenger and traditional banks in Africa are limited to using foreign technology solutions tailored for Western markets, and many of these solutions are hindered by prohibitive pricing, poor market fit and a lack of local tech support. BankOne’s major differentiation lies in its fit-for-purpose functionality and integrations with the local ecosystem of third-party services. These characteristics in addition to ease of customization and availability of local support ensure that the platform seamlessly plugs into the needs of African Banks and Fintechs.