According to the lender, while the waiver presents forgone fees on one hand, the growth in customer numbers has enabled it to expand other business lines, including loan disbursements.
“We have seen an exponential growth in the number of customer accounts. Before this, we had opened about 20,000 new personal accounts, just by doing this (implementing the waiver), we ended up opening nearly 70,000 accounts last year. That has opened a huge base for us to offer other financial services to them like unsecured loans, stock financing, and other solutions,” said I&M Bank general manager for personal and business banking Shameer Patel.
Beyond driving the uptake of other products, the bank says the waiver now enters its second year has enabled the lender to assess the demand for its services, informing decisions such as branch expansion. Last year, I&M opened eight branches and plans to open a further 12 in 2024.
While most banks opted to reintroduce fees on bank-to-mobile money wallet transactions/transfers at the end of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) pandemic-induced waiver, I&M continued to zero-rate the transactions to individual customers.
“The reason we did this is really to save money for our customers. The charges may look small but they do really add up at the end of the month,” added Mr Patel. I&M Bank has introduced a business account for individuals dubbed Solo Biz that seeks to expand financial services to business persons who ran their enterprises on personal bank accounts.
“When you run a business in your personal account, it is not tailored to offer some of the other solutions that are specific to businesses such as supply chain financing. One can now separate your personal transactions from business ones,” said Mr Patel.
