Shelter Afrique managing director Andrew Chimpondah (left), chairman
Daniel Nghidinua (right) and HF Group CEO Robert Kibaara during the
groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project on Kamiti Road on
March 21. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Kenya’s oldest stand-alone mortgage provider HF Group said
Friday its digital banking platform dubbed HF Whizz added half a million
new subscribers slightly over eight months after launch.
The
Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm’s newly appointed chief
executive, Mr Robert Kibaara, said this underlines the vast potential of
mobile banking at a time banks are embracing technology to counter
disruptions from financial innovations.
Mr Kibaara, who
was poached from NIC Bank last December where he held the director of
retail banking, is eyeing to turn around the fortunes of the lender by
growing it into a fully-fledged bank, with the company de-emphasising
its property investment business that has been hit by a slowdown in the
real estate sector.
The strategy, Mr Kibaara said, is
anchored on four pillars including “building a digital bank, expansion
into new banking segments and maintaining dominance in mortgage
finance.”
“Through HF Whizz, we have become accessible
to new customer segments that would otherwise be difficult to reach with
the brick and mortar model,” said Mr Kibaara.
“Our
digital innovation is customer-led, with products and services geared
towards providing an end-to-end digital experience that allows customers
to self-serve from wherever they are on the globe.”
HF Whizz, launched in July last year, entered a growing market
of commercial bank-backed lending apps such as Commercial Bank of
Africa’s M-Shwari, KCB-M-Pesa, Equity’s Equitel, M-Coop Cash and
Barclays Timiza.
There has been growing use of fintech
in the Kenyan banking sector as technology leads to fundamental changes
in how the banking sector operates and delivers value to customers.
“Through
the app, the lender has acquired 550,000 new customers, reflecting a
600 per cent jump in customer numbers; disbursed over 1,000 loans per
day with the number of disbursements growing daily and registered
transactions exceeding Sh2.5 billion,” said the bank.
Digital banking
Other
banks are increasingly adopting mobile banking apps, signalling an era
of shifting towards digital banking as lenders transfer their services
online amid falling customer traffic at branches.
The HF app — available on Google Play and App Store — is part of the predominantly mortgage lender’s diversification strategy.
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