DafriBank Digital, which has been in the making in the past year will go live this July, revealed Catherine Anajemba, Managing Director of DafriGroup PLC.
Anajemba further claimed that DafriBank Digital has an edge over other digital banks due to its customized features such as Merchant API, cross-border payment, and global network.
“A client in the USA can send money to Nigeria through DafriBank and receive the money in Nigeria bank account within 10 minutes. Moreover, these transactions are extremely economical and error-proof, thereby benefiting the clients in both monetary and non-monetary sense,” she explained.
She gave further insight into how the DafriGroup scaled hurdles to set up DafriBank. “We are a global platform and due to the type of services we offer, finding a suitable license that will allow us to broaden our scope was the biggest challenge but in the end, we optioned for an offshore banking license,” she said.
Concerning DafriBank’s operation in Nigeria, especially with regard to trading in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, she said: “The CBN is not our licensee and our services have nothing to do with crypto, hence we are not directly affected by the circular.”
On how the company and its executives have been coping with the ban of Twitter in Nigeria, Anajemba said: “While we trust the government to make decisions in the public interest, it has affected our reach to the people. We are, however, adjusting well, and plan to substitute Twitter with other social media platforms to continue communicating with the people,” she clarified.
While Nigerians are anticipating the advent of DafriBank, their expectation was recently heightened by the declaration from Xolane Ndhlovu, the chairman of the DafriGroup, who said: “There is a plan [for DafriBank] to become a full flag commercial bank in Nigeria in the near future.”