Irish-Based Platform Set to Transform Digital Banking Experience Across Africa With UBA partnership

This article was written by Lauren Fetherston, and edited by Jonathan Finlay.

Digital banking platform provider, Layer has today announced it is partnering with United Bank for Africa (UBA) to fuel its digital transformation aimed at providing greater access to a wider range of financial services for its African customers. Layer is a digital transformation platform that enables large financial institutions to rapidly revolutionize their customer and back-office digital experiences.

This new partnership will see the Dublin-based company add an additional 22 million users to its platform. Through its collaboration with Layer, the financial conglomerate will be able to provide seamless banking services in different jurisdictions from one central platform without altering core banking systems.

Layer’s proprietary platform enables banks to offer their customers a blend of traditional and neobank capabilities through one single platform that sits on top of core banking systems and connects through API’s. UBA has implemented all of the capabilities available on the Layer platform to provide end to end digitalisation of their banking services, delivered through a new mobile app and website to 22 million users, across 20 different markets in 4 different languages.

The company is one of the only European fintech firms to work directly with an African bank in rolling out a fast-paced, collaborative platform that aims to transform how data is utilized across the banking sector. Layer hopes to accelerate financial inclusion and digital transformation processes across the world through similar partnerships. It now delivers banking services to over 25 million consumers through its existing collaborations.

With the smartphone revolution gathering pace in Sub-Saharan Africa, the digital banking sector on the continent is primed to boom. While only 4 in 10 people in Kenya and Nigeria have access to smartphones at present, sales are accelerating with Africa expected to account for 7.1% of the total marketplace by 2023.

Coupled with findings by McKinsey that 46% of bank customers expect to use digital or mobile services more in the post-pandemic world, Layer is assisting UBA to position itself to revolutionise the way it does business across the African continent by becoming the go-to bank that ensures a seamless experience for staff and customers.

UBA Group MD Mr Kennedy Uzok Gives His Take on the Platform

Commenting on how UBA choose Layer as their digital banking platform, UBA Group MD Mr Kennedy Uzok said: “We conducted a very thorough digital banking vendor/platform evaluation process across the global market considering the advancement in technology, the richness of features, ownership cost-effectiveness and smooth implementation approach.”

Speaking about the significance of the partnership, Roy Zakka, Founder and CEO of Layer commented: “This is an exciting and ambitious partnership in spirit and scale. We are delighted to work with UBA to accelerate the arrival of digital banking services across the continent of Africa and Europe. We are helping position UBA as a digital-first leader across Africa while also helping dramatically reduce their annual spend for mobile applications alone.”