Social Media Finance Companies Threaten Banks, Telcos

Banks and Telecom companies in Ghana must worry over the possibility of social media companies offering financial services.

According to the Mobile Financial Services Manager at Vodafone Ghana, Carl Ashie, the financial strength and influence of social media giants like Facebook and Whatsapp make them a credible threat to current providers of financial services across the world.

Facebook and Google have long tried to break into financial services, with products such as Pay by Messenger and Google Wallet.

Speaking on the changing financial services landscape, Mr Ashie called on banks and Telco's to offer quality products and services in order to stay relevant.

“I have said it before, and I'll say it again, the one who understands the customer the more will win this financial services game. Now it's really not about the banks or the Telcos. We are now even more afraid of the social media guys. They are much more deadly than anybody else because they know everything about the customer,” he observed.

According to Mr Ashie, the wealth of information available to social media and tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Baidu, Alipay and Tencent, will enable them to churn out tailor-made products and services.

“The social media and tech giants know a bit more about the customer than us the Telcos while we the Telcos know a bit more about the customer than the banks. This allows them to develop products and services that highly satisfy the end customer.”

Mr Ashie was speaking at the just-ended Citi Fm and Citi TV's FinTech Summit.

The summit which was on the theme 'The Future of Financial Technology Summit', came off on June 14, 2018, at the Swiss Spirit Alisa Hotel.

The event assembled players in the financial sector including Fintech [Financial technology] firms, banks and a representative from the Bank of Ghana.

Some of the speakers at the event were Head of Payment Systems, at the Bank of Ghana, Dr Setor Amediku, the CEO of Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIIPSS), Mr Archie Hesse, the CTO of PaySwitch, Emmanuel Osei Akoto and the CEO of Rancard Solutions, Kofi Dadzie.

The rest were William Derban from Fidelity Bank and the CEO of Hubtel- Alex Adjei-Brahm, among others.