- Boasts a Customer Strength of 510,000 Individuals and 5,000 businesses.
- Celebrates 20 Million Transactions Processed so far Worth Nearly One Billion Dollars.
- Recognised by Customers as one of the Simplest and Fastest Banks.
Raven Bank, a new-generation digital financial institution, marked its second anniversary, celebrating its journey marked with many successes amid prevailing economic challenges.
At a press conference hosted on Friday, April 14, 2023, the bank shared its successes, challenges, and plans for the coming months as a digital bank catering to the banking needs of Millenials and Gen Zs—a majority of the Nigerian population of over 230 million with a median age of 18.1.
In his opening remarks, where he shared his story while building the bank, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Raven Bank, Uchenna Nnodim, expressed his excitement about the milestone, describing the two-year period as a ‘fantastic journey of grace and faith’. In the last two years, Nnodim and his team have piloted a chunk of their product ideas and continue to build a financial system that provides simple, fast, reliable, convenient and secure financial tools for individuals and businesses. “We sought ways in which we could be able to marry all your accounts in one place so you can access your money all at once and utilise it with ease. That’s where we started two years ago,” he shared.
Two years later, Raven Bank has evolved from being just a microfinance bank meeting the banking needs of customers to being a digital bank that prioritises reliability, customers’ on-demand access to and control over their monies, and excellent customer experience with a within-the-hour response policy.
“When we launched our first product, we realised that there is a huge gap in the banking industry in terms of the quality of service delivered. We also realised that there are different ways people want to make use of their money which had not been possible. Figuring that out has driven us to create new and different plans from the original place we started, based on the knowledge that people want to use a reliable bank and need different ways of interacting with their money. So, we started building on these things, and different products were birthed from all those ideas.”
In a chat with Modaculture, Nnodim mentioned that Raven Bank is a bootstrapped startup which has grown impressively, generating 21,000 reviews on Appstore with a customer strength to the tune of 510,000 individuals and 5,000 businesses as of April 14, 2023, a feat, especially for a company that has spent such little time in the ecosystem so far. He explained that in the past two years, he had prioritised building the product and company while self-funding. This has yielded good fruit going by the positive customer feedback and increasing volume of daily transactions.
“As of today, we have been able to amass 510,000 individual customers. We also have 5,000 businesses currently using a couple of our products. We have transacted 20 million times worth nearly a billion dollars across our different products. Our personal banking product, our oldest product with the most users, is live. Since the fall of 2022, we have started rolling out other products, such as our Banking as a Service (BaaS) infrastructure that allows you to customise your own payment experiences for other businesses. We also launched business banking for modern-day entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes.
Uchenna Nnodim, Raven Bank CEO
“Business banking solves most painful issues businesses experience, including managing expenses, payroll, invoicing, multiple accounts, sub-accounts, tax compliance, and other major issues.”
Speaking on one of Raven Bank’s top products in the market, the Raven POS, Nnodim said that the bank wanted to change how businesses collect their offline payments and credited its success so far to the level of thought the team put into it. “From the feedback we get from people who use our products, it’s mostly about the thought put into every single one of our products. They have been using lots of products before now, but when they interact with ours, a lot of pain is taken away. It’s in how we think about our businesses and our users. We call ourselves the ‘People’s Bank of Africa’. What that means is that you are serving the people, so what are you doing if you are not thinking about their pain points and trying to create products that solve those problems?”
This is why, according to Nnodim, Raven Bank is meticulous with product development and customer engagement, which led to customer feedback that identifies Raven as one of the simplest and fastest banks they have ever used.
In his comments regarding the irregularities of virtual dollar card services offered by digital banks and how Raven Bank intends to navigate the issues, Nnodim said that the Raven Virtual Cards would be re-introduced into the market as soon as the bank has secured direct and long-lasting partnerships with the card providers.
“For us, virtual cards came as a need by our customers. It’s not where we started from, but we realised that most bank cards could not allow one to pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and others. And our customers have these needs. So, we decided to go into this maintenance to seek a solid solution. Because we are the People’s Bank, we are currently deploying resources to have direct partnerships with Visa and Mastercard so that as soon as we launch after the maintenance process, the cards would stand the test of time.”
When asked what sets Raven apart from its competitors, he highlighted the ease, simplicity and speed with which the bank tackles traditional banking issues such as transaction delays, inaccessibility of funds, discomforting transaction charges and the sheer inconvenience of using multiple bank accounts. With Raven Bank, all the customers’ banking needs are housed in one app where they can carry out all transactions, with transaction fees that don’t exceed N10 compared to the N10, N26, and N50 charged by traditional banks.
In addition, Jude Okorharen, Raven Bank’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), pinpointed the bank’s smooth UI/UX as one of its outstanding features, which continues to attract new users within the teeming Gen Z and Millenial demographic cohorts. He also mentioned the USSD banking and the Raven Username, which enables Raven-to-Raven transfers, as features that cater to the community of customers without smartphone access, ensuring that the unbanked are truly banked and the banked remain banked. He added that, for these customers, the Raven POS is available to enable them to sign up for business accounts, receive an instant bank account number, and receive immediate notifications of their transactions.
Continuing, Nnodim highlighted community as one of the core values of Raven Bank, explaining that the bank deeply appreciates customer loyalty and continues to pay it all forward by providing overdrafts to its customers to help them meet their financial goals. The bank also works with SMEs and entrepreneurs to provide them with business grants, loans, financial education, and intensive training to assist them in growing their businesses and guide them on their financial journeys, which also forms part of the company’s CSR projects. “The Millionaire program is one where we go into dense communities and meet the entrepreneurs that need support and provide business grants to the tune of one million Naira to support and grow their business. We also take them through one-week intensive financial courses to put them on the right track to grow their business.” He hinted at an elaborate CSR project that will impact the student community and touch over 300,000 lives, going live in the coming months as the bank continues to live up to its promise of being the ‘People’s Bank of Africa’.
Commenting on security, the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chidinma Onukogu, reassured its current and potential customers of the safety of their monies with the bank as it is fully licensed to operate in the space. She urged customers to continue entrusting Raven with their finances as the bank is committed to seeking new initiatives to satisfy and help customers multiply their monies and make them even more financially independent. “I want to say that Raven is licensed by all the necessary regulatory bodies, including the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Central Bank of Nigeria. On the aspect of trust, we are not going anywhere anytime soon. We are fully licensed to operate in this space and have been consistent with providing quality service.”
She mentioned some initiatives Raven Bank has created to help customers build financial wellness, including the ‘Raven Bird Talk’, which educates young people on how to make the most out of their income and the ‘Raven Savings Feature’, which helps them boost their savings culture. Reiterating the reliability of the bank, Onukogu noted that during the Naira scarcity of December 2022 – March 2023, Raven Bank was one of the most reliable banks during the period, as evidenced in the over 40% spike in downloads—from an estimated 10,000 – 15,000 daily transactions to over 22,000. “We had a lot of downloads during that period. A lot of people relied on us to receive their funds. It speaks a lot to our reliability even when there’s a crisis in the financial service system.”
While acknowledging the gatekeeping role of the regulatory bodies, albeit imperative, Raven Bank’s Chief Liaison Officer (CLO), Micheal Ibitoye, mentioned that the bank also recognises its responsibility of ensuring transactions are processed, which it achieves by instituting multiple checks along the transaction journey from the point of initiation, through to the processing and to the final receiver with reports generated and duly sent to the user at all times, which can be monitored via the app as well. He also stated that failed transactions are auto-reversed within twelve hours.
On what’s next for the budding company, Nnodim said that the bank would consolidate deeper on the banking products and services built thus far, incorporating feedback along the way. He hinted at the launch of cross-border payments and virtual dollar accounts for international remote workers.
