The Standard Chartered Bank has been named The Best Regional Consumer Digital Bank for Middle East & Africa by Global Finance, for the fifth consecutive year.
The announcement of the win came at the Global Finance Digital Bank Conference and awards dinner, which recently took place in London, an official statement from Bank’s headquarters in Accra, said.
“We are delighted with this industry recognition. Winning the award for the fifth consecutive year is a testament to our continued focus in developing market-leading online and mobile channels that deliver easy, convenient banking to all our clients,” said Jaydeep Gupta, Regional Head of Retail Banking for Africa and Middle East at Standard Chartered Bank.
“We have been investing in developing our digital banking solutions not only to transform client experience but also to provide them with the highest levels of security. We continue to invest for long-term growth Africa and Middle East were digital technologies will shape the future of banking.”
The statement said Standard Chartered also won The World’s Best Consumer Digital Bank for the sixth consecutive year, beating out competition from 261 banks from around the world and dominated the Global Sub- category Awards, sweeping up awards for Best Global Consumer Mobile Banking, Best Global Consumer Mobile Banking App and Best Global Information Security Initiatives.
Standard Chartered last year announced it would invest USD1.5 billion in technology over three years, and the wins reflected the bank’s commitment to deliver the latest in digital banking innovation to its clients across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, it said.
The Bank recently announced it would be rolling out a suite of cutting-edge fingerprint and voice biometric technologies so clients can securely access their bank account balances, cards and investments using their unique fingerprint or voice as identifiers.
“Reaching more than five million clients, this is the most extensive roll-out of fingerprint biometric technology by any international bank and a first in most markets,” the statement said.
Earlier in July this year, Standard Chartered announced the roll out of chat and video banking in nine markets by end of 2016 and, earlier this year, it launched a digital “bank on an iPad” in eight new markets; this sales-and-service tool lets clients open an account in any location and makes banking services such as loan approvals and credit card issuance fast, simple and completely paperless.
Global Finance selected the winning banks based on the following criteria: Strength of Strategy to attract and service digital customers, Success in getting Clients to use digital offerings, Growth of Digital Customers, Breadth of product offerings, Evidence of Tangible Benefits gained from digital initiatives and Web/mobile site Design and Functionality.