Dublin-based Fintech, Layer has announced its partnership with the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to enhance access to a wider range of financial products and services to Its African customer base (Nigeria and Kenya), through its digital transformation platform.
“We conducted a very thorough digital banking vendor/platform evaluation process across the global market, taking into consideration the advancement in technology, the richness of its features, ownership cost effectiveness and smooth implementation approach.” Mr. Kennedy Uzoka, Managing Director of UBA Group.
Layer is a digital financial transformation platform that enhances the digital operations of large financial institutions, thus enabling a quicker and easier customer experience. Layer's proprietary platform allow banks to offer customers a blend of traditional and modern banking through a single platform that reside at the apex of core banking systems and connects through API’s.
“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 whole continent of Africa and Europe. We are helping position UBA as a digital-first leader across AFRICA while also helping dramatically reduce their annual spending for mobile applications alone.” Roy Zakka, founder and CEO of Layer
A Symbiotic Relationship
The new partnership will see the Irish fintech add an additional 22 million users to its existing customer base of 25 million (a function of existing collaboration).
UBA as a result of the partnership will be able provide top notch banking services in different regions from one central platform without changing core banking systems. UBA has adopted all the functionalities of Layer's platform. This will enable the bank to provide endless digital banking services to their 22 million customers via a new mobile app and website.
Being the first European firm to work directly with an African banking institution, Layer anticipates accelerating financial inclusion and digital revolution processes across the banking sectors round the world through similar partnerships.
Nigeria vs. Ireland
GDP: $448.12 billion compared to Ireland's 388.699 billion in 2019
Population: 200,963,599 compared to Ireland's 4,934,040 in 2019
GDP per capita: $2,229 compared to Ireland's $78,778 in 2019