Itai Ndongwe
BancABC, the local banking subsidiary of pan-African Group Atlas Mara, has joined forces with Telone, one of the country’s largest telecommunications players, to launch City Hopper Agency, an extension of the bank’s City Hopper service, which debuted two years ago.
Through the agency arrangement, the bank intends to partner several organisations who will provide local remittance service to Zimbabweans through the country.
The bank launched the ground-breaking City Hopper facility in 2020, a ‘first to the market’ remittance service that address the nationwide challenge of instantly sending and receiving foreign currency across the country. The product has since been replicated by other financial players.
Lance Mambondiani, CEO of BancABC, stated during the partnership’s launch that the bank is passionate about providing relevant, reliable, and timely solutions to connect and address its clients.
“BancABC is passionate about providing relevant, reliable and timely solutions to address our client’s everyday problems. We are excited to offer effective banking solutions to all communities working together with progressive partners like Telone,” Mambondiani said.
In order to increase customer accessibility and convenience, the bank will appoint qualifying agents to process City Hopper Cash-In and Cash-Out transactions outside of its branch and kiosk network. TelOne, which has a strong presence across the country, will be the bank’s first City Hopper Agent, with more agents on the way.
TelOne’s MD Mrs. Chipo Mtasa stated that being the bank’s first partner on its pilot stage innovation is a great pleasure, and they are eager to extend the product’s convenience through their network.
“TelOne was excited to be BancABC’s first partner on this groundbreaking innovation and look forward to extending the convenience of this product through our network of shops across the entire country,” Mtasa said.
The Bank was upbeat about its partnership with TelOne and expects the connections to provide increased reach and service to Zimbabweans who use the City Hopper service. At the charge of just 3%, BancABC and non-BancABC customers can enjoy the convenience of the instantly sending US dollars and South African Rands to their loved ones across the country.
BancABC has in in the past few months been at the centre of an number of innovations, including BranchX, a virtual bank branch launched during the Covid -19 lockdown, A360, a new age mobile app and Ally, a banking platform which allows customers to transact on WhatsAPP.
