Rubies, a digital banking platform of Highstreet Microfinance Bank offering 100% digital, zero-fee banking and support for professionals, artisans and Small and Medium Enterprises has debuted in Nigeria.
The digital platform which enables customers perform all their banking needs on the go without hidden charges also allows them gain access to over 1000 ATMs across the country.
Speaking during the launch of Rubies in Lagos, Yinka Daramola, chief executive officer of QuCoon, the parent company to Rubies and a FinTech company creating a full-fledged digital bank said Rubies is creating value, adding that it is not competing with any bank but complementing what banks are doing.
“We want to create wealth. We are particularly interested in how the customers bank with us, how they make money and how we creatively drive CBN financial inclusion project. We have a loan market, on this market, we have excess cash. Rather than earn small interest on your cash, you can bring it to Rubies and make it available to whoever needs to borrow the money.
“We provide a platform where we provide all the details to you. For instance, if you put N20,000 out for loan, people who need the loan can come on the platform and request for the loan. We provide the details of these people. Here, people make money. We make it easy for people to access loans,” Daramola said.
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He disclosed that Rubies does not have the financial muscles to compete with the banks, so the platform offers new creative products where individuals can give out loans and make regular income.
“Before now, banks were the only supplier of loans but with Rubies we are making it possible for individuals with cash to be suppliers of loans. We have independent bankers in Rubies which is completely new. As an independent banker, all you do is to acquire customers and bring them on the platform; you are responsible for ensuring they use the app because the more they bank in Rubies, the more money you make.
“You earn 20percent of the income Rubies makes from customers you bring in. There are a lot of processes we are bringing into this to make banking easy by taking future banking to people, driving central bank financial inclusion project and creating value for people,” the CEO explained.
Speaking on the selection process of his workforce which cuts across young corpers and students from various universities, he disclosed that Rubies is creating a platform that makes it easy for young people, even undergraduates to compete in healthy environment, so the company invests a lot of time and money in training them after they have gone through a very thorough selection process.
“We get these young people from very good schools and they go through thorough selection process. Some of the corpers don’t want to leave. They are so proud of what they have created. We believe in creating a right platform for young people who are desirous of the future to excel and produce,” he added.
Speaking on the security of the platform, Daramola said, “The traditional solution to security is expensive because the cost of security and infrastructure is huge. In Rubies, we are creating a different approach. We have 40,000 customers. We plan to reach three million customers in three years.
“Some banks invest in technology with the mind-set that it will take them through a period of three years, sadly, the next year, the technology becomes obsolete. What we have done in Rubies is to leverage the full benefits of what technology offers. If our customers grow big, our infrastructure grows big, if its small, our technology maintains that size. This way, we are able to save cost and deliver premium services to our customers,” he added.
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