Business Quest 
The *247# USSD service also enables customers with any mobile device, access bank services regardless of the devise make - feature phones (Kabambe) or smartphones.{Photo/Courtesy]
Equity has revamped its USSD service (*247#) offering customers a seamless banking experience. The newly updated USSD offers a unified service offering across mobile networks and an enhanced customer experience with simpler customer journeys.
Customers in Kenya can now easily access the USSD service on Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom and Equitel. The Bank has now expanded the services to meet its customers’ needs. Some of the new features on the platform include;
- Access to instant loans that range between Kes.100 and Kes.3million
- Self-registration or onboarding of both existing Equity and non-Equity customers on the service
- Customers being able to save or maintain recipient’s bank details which makes it easy and convenient to do repeat transactions.
The *247# USSD service also enables customers with any mobile device, access bank services regardless of the devise make – feature phones (Kabambe) or smartphones.
Since the advent of COVID-19, individuals and businesses are rapidly adopting the use of technology to confront the challenges and risks posed by the pandemic to remain afloat and continue to serve their customers.
During the release of the 2021 third-quarter results, Equity Group Managing Director and CEO, Dr. James Mwangi said “COVID has acted as a tail wind to the adoption of digital banking making us transform into a Big Tech in the financial services sector. The Group is increasingly shifting from its legacy brick and mortar model of branches and ATMs to self-service model of client’s own electronic devices or third-party infrastructure as more customers opting for cashless transactions.”
The Bank has rolled out its upgraded Equity Mobile App (available on Play Store: http://bit.ly/EquitymobileAndroid & App Store: http://bit.ly/EquityMobileIOS) and online banking platform Equity Online (https://equityonline.equitygroupholdings.com/en/access/login), previously known as EazzyNet, to provide a seamless customer experience across all banking channels. Customers can send money, transfer funds, borrow loans, print statements among many other services at the comfort of their mobile phones, laptops, desktops etc at home, office or anywhere.
Advancements in technology continue to transform the banking sector and Equity has leveraged on this to give customers choice and freedom to access and operate their accounts. This has progressively led to consumers preferring to carry out most of their transactions digitally as opposed to going to the branches. According to the recently – released 2021 Q3 results, out of the 975.1 million transactions processed for the 9 months in the year, only 30.1 million transactions or 3% of all transactions were handled by branches and ATMs with the digital bank handling and processing 945 million transactions or 97% of all the transactions with the self-service customers’ own device mobile channel handling and processing 90% of digital transactions.
