Company: Absa

Client: In-house Project

Country: South Africa

In Africa today, over 350 million people are excluded from formal banking – whether by choice, or by circumstance. Customer barriers include perceived costs, banking complexity, limited geographical and technological access, and a lack of trust. People still largely use cash which is risky to carry and costly to use. In South Africa, six million people are "underbanked" - withdrawing their entire salary or wages from an account into cash every month. Another 12 million people are "unbanked" with no bank account at all.

Over 56 billion payments are made every year in the informal economy in South Africa and expanding financial inclusion will be closely linked to the digitisation of cash. In 2023, one of the most advanced payment systems in the world was launched, enabling interbank payments in less than 10-seconds and with low to no fees. As the adoption of smartphones grows exponentially, Africa is poised for a new way of banking and Absa, one of the largest African banks is well placed to deliver.

Absa has a mature design team with over 160 designers that use service design thinking as their primary approach to problem-solving. A team of service and user experience designers, strategists, process engineers, business and system analysts, architects and technologists came together to co-create a solution to this problem. Over 100 hours were spent with customers, unpacking key assumptions around cash behaviours and attitudes towards traditional banking, and establishing a level of desirability towards an alternative.

Enter Absa ChatWallet – an innovative mobile money solution with financial services built entirely into the app that customers already use and enjoy every day, WhatsApp. Most consumers choose WhatsApp as their primary way to stay connected with family and friends. ChatWallet empowers Africans with the ability to open a digital wallet in under one minute in this familiar and accessible channel. For no monthly fees and no to low charges for other services, customers can safely store their hard-earned money, send and receive cash, and purchase other utilities.

ChatWallet was designed with three key principles in mind: security, simplicity and authenticity. The safest wallet in market, it uses facial biometrics for onboarding and allows customers to create a unique PIN. AI-based banking uses natural language understanding to make tasks simpler and faster than ever before. For example, buying airtime is 78% faster than without ChatWallet. The humanised user experience is designed to build trust and keep customers in-channel with education.

In just four months, ChatWallet is showing great promise in achieving the audacious goals that were set out. This new flagship innovation increased Absa’s monthly digital transactional sales by 144% - with over 2,2m user sessions and over half a million transactions.