Grace Muliisa, the Ecobank Uganda Managing Director, speaks at a recent event
Ecobank Uganda, a subsidiary of the pan-African Banking Group, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, and parent company of the Ecobank Group, is undergoing transformation in order to serve customers better, Business Focus exclusively reports.
Ecobank Uganda has posted inconsistent results for over 10 years.
The bank made a net loss of Shs8.08bn in 2021, up from Shs5.95bn loss recorded a year earlier.
However, Grace Muliisa, who took over office as Managing Director of Ecobank Uganda in September 2021, is determined to turnaround the bank.
It is worth noting that Clement Dodoo, who had improved the bank’s performance, quit his job in 2020 to join Kenya based Equity Group Holdings Limited.
He was replaced by Annette Wabunoha Kihuguru in acting capacity until she ‘retired’ paving way for the appointment of Muliisa.
In an exclusive interview with Business Focus, Charity Kamusiime, the Marketing Manager at Ecobank Uganda, said “the bank has undergone a financial and business transformation to be more efficient to serve the market better.”
Kamusiime attributed the bank’s poor performance in 2021 to the COVID-19 induced lockdown that adversely affected several businesses.
“Over the last two years, Uganda just like elsewhere in the world has been impacted by Covid-19 particularly, Uganda experienced the longest lockdown period which translated into slow business activity. This had an impact on our business performance,” Kamusiime said.
She however, added that throughout the same years, the bank heavily invested in digital platforms to build customer convenience and excellent experience by delivering compelling solutions to customers.
“This is enabling us see early return on investment as we have since realized a strong increase in new customer numbers, total revenue, and customer deposits,” she said.
She further explained that Ecobank Uganda successfully rolled out online and digital platforms and has totally revamped its customer value propositions (CVPs), introducing new, better and relevant solutions to the market.
“Overall, Ecobank Uganda is undergoing a transformation to better align to the market needs for a better, faster, and consistent customer banking experience. We are building a different kind of bank. A bank that stands by its customers. A bank that understands its customers’ journey and aspirations and will walk the journey along with its customers. A bank that learns quickly and will strive each passing day to make sure our customers get the best experience from us every time and all the time,” Kamusiime explained.
Outlook Bright
She further revealed that Ecobank is committed to supporting its customers to recover from the effects of the pandemic through providing affordable, accessible, and convenient solutions.
“We remain at the forefront of trade, payments, remittances, and financial inclusion by continually leveraging technology and appropriate partnerships. This is supported by not only our local but our heavy regional presence that is primed to support the Africa – Intercontinental trade,” she said.
She added: “As a bank that has full presence in 35 African countries especially in the East African member countries including DRC-the latest entrant, we understand the opportunities that are available in bringing free trade amongst our customers. We will continue to enable our customers to spread their wings in such opportunities by bringing a unified banking experience across the East African block and beyond.”
Kamusiime added that the bank is not resting on its laurels just yet.
“We will continuously invest in research and development to improve our digital service offering in response to our customers’ needs,” she said.
