Digital Banking

Africa’s ATM use dips while app use increases during pandemic

June 25, 2020

Fintech app use in Africa jumped 72% while ATM transactions and branch visits dropped 50% during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report in ThisDayLive.

The information was shared in a virtual press conference held by marketing company, AppsFlyer in cooperation with Google.

"Globally, we observed an increase in app usage and over $22.5 billion in new downloads in Q1 2020," Rama Afullo, apps project lead for Google. said in the conference. "This included a significant global uptake of fintech apps, which we were already seeing significant investment before COVID-19. We are now seeing a 50% decrease in cash and ATM and branch usage, over 15% increase in finance search queries, over 72% increase in fintech apps and over $15 billion spent in iOS apps."

In addition, in Africa, there has been an extraordinary month-on-month increase in financial app download during the pandemic, said Idan Horenczyk, AppsFlyer regional account executive for Africa, in the conference. Despite the increase, Horenczyk cautioned that for financial transactions using mobile apps, there is always s chance apps could expose businesses to high transaction risks, if better precautionary measures are not put in place to address online fraud in Africa.

Networld Media Group's world of money reported this week that, since the pandemic, online banking fraud in Nigeria has skyrocketed 60%, a portion of which is attributed to fraud by banking staff.