‘Global Cash, ATM Transactions Drop By 50%’

By Emma Okonji

A recent virtual press conference that was jointly organised by AppsFlyer and Google has revealed that since the outbreak of Covid-19, global cash and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) transactions have reduced by 50 per cent.

The reduction, which was described as a good development, was attributed to the increased usage of mobile apps developed by FinTech players. This, it was revealed, made financial transactions a lot easier and safer during the lockdown.

Apps Project Lead at Google, Mr. Rama Afullo, who spoke at the virtual conference, said: “In many parts of Africa, internet, online banking, payments and investments Google searches are increasing, insurance is resurging, and banks need to push digital offerings during Covid-19, to match the surge.”

According to Afullo; “Globally, we observe an increase in app usage amid Covid-19, including over 20 per cent time spent in apps, and over 22.5 billion new downloads in Q1 2020, and over $15 billion spent in iOS apps.

“This has included a significant global uptake of FinTech Apps, which was already seeing significant investment before Covid-19, but during Covid-19, we are seeing 50 per cent decrease in cash and ATM and branch usage, over 15 per cent in finance search queries, and over 72 per cent usage of FinTech apps.”

Regional Account Executive, Africa, at AppsFlyer, Mr. Idan Horenczyk, also said at the virtual conference that in Africa, there had been an extraordinary month on month increase in financial app downloads during the pandemic.

He encouraged business on mobile attribution, which he said, would connect marketing campaigns to business results.

He explained that attribution provider would help marketers pinpoint their targeting, optimise their ad spend, and boost their return on investment (ROI).

Horenczyk described AppsFlyer as a global attribution leader, empowering marketers in leading financial institutions in Africa and worldwide to grow their business and innovate with a suite of comprehensive measurement and analytics solutions.

Built around privacy by design, AppsFlyer takes a customer-centric approach to help over 12,000 brands and over 6,000 technology partners make better business decisions every day.

They were however of the view that the increased rate of financial transactions using mobile apps, would also expose businesses to high transaction risks, if better precautionary measures were not put in place to address online fraud.

They advised that customers’ data should always be kept safe and risk-free and that businesses must ensure that their data is protected and businesses are compliant.

The organisers of the conference released a statistics showed that Nigeria and South Africa, top fraud rates in Middle East and Africa, with Nigeria having 29.3 per cent in fraud rate; South Africa, 23.9 per cent; Saudi Arabia, 18.5 per cent; Morocco, 15.4 per cent; Egypt, 12.5 per cent; Turkey, 6.3 per cent; and Iran, 5 per cent.