“As part of our focused campaign on Askari Digital, our objective is not only on enhancing digital channel utilisation, but we are also working on creating the necessary awareness regarding these mediums to hand hold our customers during this paradigm shift”, said Asim Bashir, Country Head – Digital Banking at Askari Bank Limited, while discussing the landscape of business under the current circumstances. Also he shared with Daily NewsPK in an exclusive Q&A session, how he is observing the shift in the industry being caused by this pandemic.
1. How do you imagine financial sector post COVID-19?
Like every other industry that has been hit by COVID-19, it is evident that financial organizations are also not exempted from the wrath of this pandemic. COVID-19 has greatly impacted the way banks operate, their business models, their interaction with the customers and way of work of its employees. This crisis has reinforced the need of digital transformation, innovation and use of advanced analytics to personalize the customer experience. The customers who were earlier hesitant to use a non-conventional channel for their banking needs are now forced to adapt. Organizations are obligated to provide digital channel/alternative solutions and awareness to not only their customers but also to their employees. COVID-19 has given us an opportunity to win our customers’ trust by constant proactive communication, providing them with personalized sustainable solutions and guiding them appropriately to make this transition easy.I foresee that post COVID era will involve a lot of enhancements in the existing digital ecosystem of banks, revamping of business models, investment on a more secure network and a prominent tilt towards cashless initiatives. An agile and resilient banking system will definitely be the new norm.
2. What key actions did you make to stand by your customers and society?
Askari bank was already on its journey to become digital. However, although unfortunate but COVID-19 has provided the much-needed push to accelerate this transformation. During these tough times, we are currently monitoring the usage and transaction trends to provide more personalized support and content delivery to our customers. We are ensuring that our digital channels are up and running at all times to facilitate our consumers. We are constantly in touch with customers who can avail subsidized mark up rates to hospitals for purchasing necessary equipment to battle with COVID-19 & also to provide re-finance schemes for the provision of payroll in these tough times.
3. Have you noticed a surge in digital payments? What are the challenges do you face to increase the volume and how to fix the ecosystem of the digital payment?
Yes, a significant surge is observed in adoption of digital banking channels for a couple of reasons. Due to COVID-19, there is an emerging fear in people to handle currency notes. Also, due to lock-down situation, customers are resorting towards digital channels to carry out their usual operations like IBFT, Bill payments etc. Furthermore, waiving off IBFT fees and clauses such as requirement to visit branches for enabling digital banking by State Bank has further encouraged customers towards this transition. All of this means an influx of traffic towards our digital channels, hence requiring a more robust and secure network. We are constantly monitoring the transaction trends and tweaking our back-end systems accordingly to ensure a seamless customer experience. We are also vigilantly identifying opportunity areas to be included in our future road-map. Nonetheless, we are here to support our customers in any way possible and doing our best in this regard.
4. How are you observing the need of the customers during the lock-down and what measures are you taking to provide appropriate customer experience?
The pandemic of COVID-19 has hit everyone around the globe. It’s a new world order for not only the customers but also for organizations. However, this calamity has also led organizations to shift their focus on things that actually matter like being empathetic towards customers, enhancing their experience and build an environment of mutual trust. We at Askari bank strongly believe in providing a personalized experience to our customers. To achieve this, We are efficiently using our existing communication channels with customers to facilitate them in their financial services and queries. We are ensuring that our marketing is relevant, our teams are well informed and our back-end systems are robust enough to provide a unified experience to our customers.
5. How do you see consumer behavior shifting towards digital during this crisis time and what is your approach while understanding and responding to their needs?
COVID-19 has caused a forced shift among customers towards digital banking channels. They are now more flexible in using online banking and mobile apps to perform their financial transactions. But we need to realize that this transition was not voluntary and people are always hesitant to use digital mediums wherever their money is involved. Under the current circumstances, we acknowledge our customers’ fear and are doing our best to mitigate their concerns by providing them with a secure network, easy roll back in case of a failed online transaction and an efficient helpline/customer support system. We are analyzing the situation and also identifying opportunities for cashless banking adoption to facilitate our customers.This is a rough patch that we as a nation are going through. At Askari bank, we are striving to not only successfully survive this crisis but also when it ends, we come out as more resilient and stronger than ever.
Remarkable. Sir you are great.