These past few days BancABC has been busy telling everyone who cares to listen about their new service Dial a Visa. It’s a service that allows customers to get a BancABC powered prepaid Visa card without ever leaving the comfort of their own home. The bank has promised that they will be able to deliver the card to the customer within 24 hours of them requesting it. This is all possible thanks to two secret ingredients: BranchX and Vaya.

Wait! Why do I need a prepaid Visa card?

A prepaid Visa card (prepaid MasterCards are also similar) allows you to make international payments. So let’s say you want to order a phone online and have it delivered to you, pay Avon, pay for your ACCA or CIMA lessons, pay Netflix or DSTV or you are going to a foreign country like South Africa where crime is rife and you do not want to risk carrying cash-a prepaid Visa or MasterCard makes sense.

Convinced yet? If you are a student or the parent of a student studying abroad you just give your kid this card and they can use it to pay their living expenses. Whenever they ask for money you can just walk into the bank and deposit the money onto that card and it is instantly available to you the student. That or you can just say no to the kid.

What makes dial a Visa special?

Normally you would need to walk into a bank and with the required documentation and fill a mountain of forms. The bank will then instantly issue you with the card. It’s a process that takes about 20 minutes under normal circumstances. But these are not normal times, despite the easing of the knockdown it is always prudent to heed the health authorities’ call to avoid unnecessary travel.

Dial a Visa makes use of an innovation called BranchX.

What is BranchX

Congratulations to the #ATeam on the launch of @BancabcZW latest innovation, Branch X, our Virtual Banking Platform that allows customers to do all their banking transactions using Video & Telephone Banking without setting foot in the Branch. #BranchX #Bankdifferent pic.twitter.com/IbgaAShnVO
— Lance Mambondiani (@DrMambondiani) April 8, 2020

That’s BranchX. The famous Lance Mambondiani who made Steward the popular bank it is today with his tech innovations is now at BancABC. BranchX is a play on the fact that it is a branch that does not really exist in the real world. It’s a virtual branch that customers can access using traditional calling, Zoom or Skype. Using these chat tools one can talk to a tailor who will tell them about the requirements and if the customer is satisfied place an order.

Vaya then delivers the card to the customer within 24 hours.

We are excited to announce our partnership with @VayaAfrica to offer our Dial a VISA service!

Order a #VISA card via #BranchX on 08677 008 758 & VAYA will deliver the card to your home or office?

Service available in Harare & Bulawayo with more cities to be added next week! pic.twitter.com/dXtpqIJfvO
— BancABC Zimbabwe (@BancabcZW) June 19, 2020

Making up for the fact they don’t have agents

The uptake on our new service, Dial-A-Visa has exceeded our expectations. To meet demand and for quick turnaround, we have partnered with @VayaAfrica to deliver Visa Cards to your doorstep. Service is now available in Bulawayo. More locations coming soon.
Dr Mambondiani speaking on the partnership

BancABC does not have the sort of agent model that Steward has and so they probably have to do things a little differently. However, there are chinks in the armour here. Remember this is a prepaid card, it only allows you to eat what you have killed. Unless you have a Nostro FCA account you will still need to physically visit a BancABC branch to load more funds. But by then you will already be a BancABC customer!

To learn more about prepaid Visa and MasterCards click here