The exponential growth of digital banking in Ghana, with Felix Duku (Duku Consulting)
How to Lend Money to Strangers
Brendan le Grange
4.9 • 43 Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Poor infrastructure was an insurmountable hurdle for the traditional banking model in many developing markets. Branches were too expensive to install and then often too hard to reach for many. The first waves of digital banking helped to alleviate some of this pain, but only for the lucky few who had access to a stable internet supply - so typically the wealthier folk in the bigger cities.
And then came cell phones. Not smartphones, hardy Nokia’s that could take a beating and last a week on a single charge. Safaricom and M-Pesa were probably the biggest name in this game, using SMS technology to provide basic banking on the cheap, initially in East Africa but then through large parts of the continent.
This was a godsend, but the global applicability was limited since much of the value came in its ability to work around bad infrastructure. In the developed world, where this was not a problem, consumers were looking for a customer experience that could not be delivered by SMS.
That’s what makes the latest wave of African fintech much more interesting, built as they are on smartphone apps that cater to digital consumers just as discerning as those in the rest of the world. So, by leapfrogging internet banking, African digital banking is now a hotbed of mobile banking innovation.
To put this fast-tracked growth in context, I speak to Felix Duku, one of the drivers of digital banking in Ghana over the last thirty years. Using his own career as a backdrop, we talk about the stable goal of delivering a great customer experience and how he looked to deliver this through consecutive waves of technological innovation.
If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show
A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And funny thing, I was looking at it, there was a personal development cause that I did. |
| 0:06.7 | I think it was around 2000, the year 2000. |
| 0:10.5 | Well, after we had talked a lot about personal development and all of that, |
| 0:17.8 | one of the final things that we did in that class was for us to take a look at the next 10, 15, 20 years of our lives |
| 0:27.3 | and say to ourselves where we would like to be, what we would like to be doing. |
| 0:32.8 | And picture ourselves writing a letter to that person. |
| 0:40.2 | So let me tell you what I wrote. I actually saw the letter I was looking to do some stuff. |
| 0:45.6 | It's a dear Felix, I hope by now your dream of becoming a consultant has materialized |
| 0:52.6 | and that you are consulting to a lot more banks and doing a lot more things, rather than working for one bank. |
| 1:01.1 | I hope you're exploring new technologies, creating new relationships, trying to solve the world's problems |
| 1:08.9 | but in a sensible way. And this is something that I wrote 20 years ago. |
| 1:13.7 | And I looked at the letter I said, wow, you know, that is exactly what I'm doing today. |
| 1:21.3 | I mean, I was the lead consultant in setting up the National Switch Ghana Interbank Payment Services |
| 1:27.9 | and Gibbs is one of the more innovative Central Bank Interbank switches that we have in Africa. |
| 1:35.0 | I was the lead consultant in setting up automated trading system for the Ghana Stock Exchange, |
| 1:40.6 | something which is still in use today. I was one of the consultants in setting up |
| 1:46.4 | our network of rail banks, links up all the rail banks within Ghana to run of one core banking |
| 1:53.8 | system, therefore saving the country a lot of money and stuff like that for for many banking projects. |
| 2:02.2 | Many, many banking projects, including the Central Bank itself was it 2008, 2007, 2008. |
| 2:10.9 | Of course, I'm sure you'll probably remember a bit of that. I was involved in helping one of the |
| 2:17.1 | local banks set up its loan origination system, the first of its kind in this country, |
| 2:24.4 | which enabled the bank to be able to offer consumer loan in 24 hours. |
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