Israel Arinaitwe, Stanbic Bank’s Executive Head for Consumer Banking explains about the ‘Kikole for Less Flexipay Campaign’ to a crowd during the official launch at Kalerwe market – Kampala on November 17.
With a promise to perform more transactions for less, Stanbic Bank Uganda is hoping to more than double its FlexiPay Wallet holders to at least a million subscribers in a new campaign dubbed “Kikole for less—do it for less.”
Flagged off Thursday afternoon to thousands of excited revelers at Kalerwe Market in Kampala, the six-month long campaign is aimed at creating awareness, educating and enrolling mostly new-to-bank Ugandans onto the FlexiPay digital wallet.
The choice of the campaign launch speaks to the design and nature of FlexiPay—a digital payments and transactions solution accessible on USSD technology, just like mobile money, enabling users to load, receive or send money and make merchant payments without necessarily having to open a bank account.
So, what’s the difference?
“FlexiPay is cheaper for transactions compared to other options on the market. That is why the Campaign is aptly named, ‘do it for less’ through a simple joining process of *291# on any phone,” said Israel Arinaitwe, Stanbic Bank’s Executive Head for Consumer Banking.
FlexiPay which can also be downloaded as an App doesn’t require users to have a Stanbic Bank account before they can be registered—anyone can sign-up to FlexiPay including customers of other banks.
“For the longest time, the people were going to the banks to seek financial services. With technology, banking services are now going to the people. All one needs is a phone to enjoy almost all services accessed by account holding customers such as loans, money transfer and merchant payments,” said Joseph Ndoboli, the FlexiPay Sales and Distribution Manager.
With a long list of financial services, FlexiPay is seen as an affordable game changer allowing customers and merchants to make payments directly from their FlexiWallet to other wallets and conducting a wide range of transactions at no cost or for less.
For instance, FlexiPay Wallet holders can link their debit and virtual cards to enable them pay bills while Stanbic Bank customers can directly fund their wallets from their bank accounts and pay bills or merchants.
Customers’ current options include bancassurance, bill payments (utilities, pay-tv, airtime data, fuel); receiving international remittances; paying school and university fees/tuition; payment for goods and services; and savings. For merchants, they can also receive payments, pay for stock, pay operational costs, pay staff wages and salaries, and manage and access funds.
Targeting a million wallets
After several months of successful user experience testing and below the line promotion, FlexiPay has gained an impressive customer base currently estimated to be more than 400, 000 wallets, driving transactions worth billions of shillings in monthly value.
With the new campaign, Stanbic says the aim is to more than double the current user base to a million wallets by the close of the second half of 2023.
Stanbic is banking on FlexiPay to drive its mass financial inclusion national agenda of getting more unbanked Ugandans especially women and youth, into the realm of formal financial services, a key priority under Chief Executive Anne Juuko’s leadership.
Currently, only less than 7% of the bank’s transactions are processed through the lender’s extensive traditional branch network with the bulk of customer business handled through agent bankers and self-service channels such as mobile and internet banking.
“With FlexiPay, we seek to widen the self-service options available for our customers, to enable them access safe, affordable and convenient banking services wherever and whenever they need to,” said Arinaitwe.
