Most Innovative Electronic Payment Brands In Nigeria — Understudying Fidelity Bank

Fidelity Bank Plc is a highly diversified financial services provider and a leading player in the MSME market space, with an array of innovative electronic banking services aimed at empowering its customers with endless possibilities in a cashless economy.

With an increasing customer base and a large network of branches across major towns, cities and other locations in Nigeria, Fidelity Bank is channelling significant human and financial resources towards building innovative, secure digital banking platforms with a huge emphasis on user-friendly experience.

Fidelity mPoS
Fidelity Bank Plc, Nigeria’s highly diversified financial institution, is turning to mobile point-of-sale to help micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) increase sales and broaden their customer base.

The Fidelity mobile point of sale solution accepts Visa, Verve and MasterCard as a payment option on the go. As a world-class financial institution with a new corporate identity hinged on service excellence and efficiency, the bank strongly believes that the introduction of the mPoS will help improve the performances of MSMEs, particularly their contribution to the economy.
The launch of the device is in response to the growing demand for mobile-based payment solutions, as it is ideal for making card payments, especially for merchants that have never accepted card payments and previously operated with cash only, hence it will increase their sales and expand customer base.

More importantly, the mPOS solution follows the ‘CHIP and PIN’ certifications for Nigeria, enhancing customer confidence that their electronic transactions are safe and secure.

The solution involves a payment application and a card reader that connects to the merchant’s smartphone using Bluetooth with a PIN pad for PIN entry. The merchant would definitely need to access a data network for the application to work.

Dial 4 Cash
With its innovative instant banking platform *770*0#,  which supports cardless ATM withdrawals, all Fidelity individual account holders can now withdraw cash from their accounts with “Dial for Cash” through Quickteller-enabled ATMs across the country.

“Dial for Cash” supports transactions from NGN1,000 to NGN200,000. The user receives an eight-digit reference code and creates a four-digit PIN that can be used for safe withdrawals across Quickteller-supported ATMs nationwide.

To enjoy greater ease, customers must be registered for instant banking and can perform cardless withdrawals by dialling *770*8*amount#.

This new service is a natural progression of the instant banking USSD service, which the bank currently offers, bringing a new era of convenience in doing cash withdrawals.

But more importantly, the cardless withdrawal service comes with sufficient security measures in place to protect users. Every cardless transaction requires the creation of a one-time PIN as well as the use of the *770 instant banking PIN to authorise every transaction.

Fidelity’s “Dial 4 Cash” is regarded as one of the most convenient and affordable ways to withdraw cash without going into the banking hall or using payment cards. This comes handy especially in an emergency where the customer may not have his payment (Debit/Credit) card in hand but needs cash instantly.

The launch of this service is indeed timely, considering the increasing number of USSD service users in the country.

Fidelity Online banking app
The new Fidelity Online app is not just an upgrade of the old but also a new application with enhanced features that can be used with a range of mobile devices such as Apple, Samsung, Blackberry and other Android-powered gadgets. The app offers customers a simple, seamless and secure service, where customers can bank, how and when they want.

One of the key features of the new platform is the ease of signing up for the service. Registration is a self-service process, not to mention the fact that customers can activate soft-tokens and set their transaction limit securely from the comfort of their homes or offices. Some of the other features of the Fidelity Online app include  the ability to validate beneficiaries of cash transfers before a transfer is made; using the same username and password on both mobile and web; ease of changing passwords; and increased number of billers that can be paid directly from Fidelity Online such as utility bills, toll companies, churches, cable and Internet subscription and lots more.

—Tony Udemba