AFRIPRUD designs product to ease registrar services
SUCCOR has come the way of capital market shareholders as African Prudential (AFRIPRUD) Plc, yesterday, unveiled new USSD code to ease shareholders’ multitude of task in the market.
The USSD code- *4018# enables shareholders to perform numerous tasks, including checking outstanding dividend, shareholding balance, confirming bank mandate from mobile phones from the comfort of their homes, work places or leisure. With the code, shareholders can also check postal and email addresses from their mobile phones.
The company’s Managing Director, Peter Ashade, explained that the service, which is available round the clock, works on all kinds of mobile phones and networks, and does not require Internet data, adding that shareholders only need to dial the code to access the service environment. He noted that the ‘Personal Registrar’ was developed by the company in its drive to persistently pursue exceptional service experience and is borne out of its culture of excellence and drive to improving investors’ confidence in the market. “We continuously embark on product development and process improvement to deliver exceptional customer experience to our clients across sectors of the economy, while exciting the Nigerian capital market as a whole,” he said.
Ashade stated further that at the announcement of the company’s change of name from Africa Prudential Plc to Africa Prudential Registrars Plc in 2017, it was emphasised that the name change does not imply its exit from registrar business but was rather to enable it extend service offerings to other sectors of the economy by leveraging technology, one of which is the just launched USSD code *4018#.
A Non-executive Director of the firm, Emmanuel Nnorom, stressed that the development of the product was not just about Africa Prudential, but remains a plus for the entire registrar business in Nigeria and encouraged other players in the market to follow suit in breaking new grounds.
THINK First Technology has launched Ogaranya, an online solution that aligns with the future of commerce in Africa. Ogaranya is software, which was created to crack the solution to commerce and seamless payment that is merchant and customer based.
The Chief Executive Officer of Think First Technology, Akinyele Olubodun said: “Ogaranya is a 24/7 virtual assistance that helps you buy products, book event tickets, donates to a cause and makes payments without the Internet. It aims to help complete offline commerce transactions via SMS in few steps with no or low Internet penetration rate and a high basic mobile phone adoption rate.
Using a unique code; adverts are easily converted to sales by initiating an order via SMS or other textbased channels; thus, giving a new meaning to offline business transaction and extending sales beyond the current brick and mortar system. Payment is completed in real-time via variety of options including USSD, Bank Deposit and online payment”. Olubodun insisted that Ogaranya is also available for buyers on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Slack, Wechat,skype, among others) and synced across all channels.
Payment does not need Internet since unstructured supplementary services are handled by USSD.
Just like every USSD transaction, payments are secured and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard also secures bank transactions. “No password, convoluted process and special knowledge are needed to carry out a transaction, all the user needs is the knowledge of sending SMS”, he added.