Letshego customer deposit drive yields fruit

By Hilary Mare

LETSHEGO Namibia’s customer deposit mobilisation drive that kicked off in 2020 has yielded significant growth of N$144 million moving deposits from N$43 million at end 2019 to N$187 million at the end of 2020.

This is contained in Letshego Namibia’s financial results for the financial year ending December 31 2020 which also reveal that advances to customers grew by 24 percent in comparison to 2019 results that grew by 15 percent.

“We have seen positive results in the performance of our digital channels during 2020 with growth in our mobile banking transactions values almost 4-fold from N million in 2019 to N0 million by the end of 2020.

We were able to successfully rollout digital customer onboarding and alternative channels solutions to avert the impact of COVID-19 on customer volumes,” Letshego Namibia chief executive officer, Ester Kali said.

An interesting observation despite the push for card less transactions, card transaction values more than doubled to N9 million comparing to the 2019 amount of N4 million.

Apart from these notable figures, the key drivers to this transformation included adopting enterprise-wide agility, the conversion of traditional direct sales agents (DSAs) into Digital Eagles to re-educate our customers to transition from traditional channels to remote digital alternatives.

“Letshego Namibia remains focused on improving the lives of its customers and communities through financial literacy initiatives aimed at promoting productive lending, encouraging a culture of savings as well as rewarding longstanding customer relationships,” Kali further said.

Apart from the challenges faced due to the pandemic, 2020 was a transformative year for Letshego Namibia, with digital transformation at the centre of activities to support business continuity and ensure that its customers and people’s safety and well-being are prioritised. The transformation was underpinned by the implementation of digital channels and supported by a call centre with staff working remotely. As a result of the effort, Digital Adoption increased to 64 percent in Namibia in December 2020, less than 1 percent.

Chairperson of the board of directors of Letshego Holdings Namibia, Maryvonne Palanduz, commented: “We take pride in our consistent delivery in terms of our service and product offering which are now geared towards the digitization of all our service and product channels. Our shareholders remain an integral part of our growth path and we remain optimistic to continue delivering despite economic challenges.”