With the Small and the Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are on the verge of swiftening up of their digitalized transformational efforts as in response to the current pandemic, Standard Bank, Mastercard as well as Google have announced a joint collaborative effort to aid them in moving their businesses online, acceptance of the digitalized payments, as well as luring in more clients.
Via the collaborative efforts, the SME’s could also get better access towards Standard Bank’s SimplyBlu that is an all-in-one E-commerce solution which is in turn powered by the aid of Mastercard’s Payment Gateway services, plus as well as free Google Ads to the economical rate of R500. These unique and innovative capabilities have been packaged in the form of a bundled solution for aiding business owners for tackling economic hurdles posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Nelisa Zulu from the Standard Bank stated that “Standard Bank is one of the pioneers as South Africa’s pivotal financial service providers, it is suitably aware regard the fact that how much the small businesses play a pivotal role for powering economic growth as well in generation of employment opportunities. The strategic alliance created in connection with major brands like Mastercard as well as Google makes sure that they are able to support smaller businesses as well as in adding up their clients a lot more tangible benefits that provides real value.”
Launched within 2019, the SimplyBlu aids the SMEs for creation of an online space via the plug-and-play E-commerce store built up, that is hugely interfaced with an instantaneously online backed checkout. The platform has been designed in a way that it’s users can all set them up with ease and also get accepting the payments within a specific time frame and it also supports in taking their skill levels up as well as resource constraints within the account.
Suzanne Morel, Country Manager, Mastercard, South Africa stated that “they have recognized the huge pressure that the smaller business owners are presently facing and are hugely committed for supporting them through COVID-19 Pandemic and beyond it as they get adapted to a better way of operating as well as evolving client requirements. Via this collaboration, their primarily mission is to aid as many SMEs as possible alongside varied tools and their support for expansion of their digital capabilities and in taking their operations to the next levels.”
Alongside the Google Ads collaboration, the SMEs will be provided direct access for a digitalized marketing channel further aiding them for driving up increased website visits for growing online sales, bookings, mailing list signups, making better phone calls, instantaneous customer interest queries as well as more in-store visits.
Google South Africa Country Director Alistair Mokoena, further stated that “Smaller Businesses have already been the hardest to get hit during this uncertain and most troublesome COVID-19 Pandemic period. A vast majority of them have had a tough time in figuring out rapidly in how to swivel their operations to a ‘digital-first’ approach. Yet, there remains a gap between those who can access these operational opportunities and those who can’t. That’s the gap we want to bridge with this collaboration.”
Rise about E-commerce
E-commerce has been a real boon for smaller organizations over the last few months, generally fit in conformity with client’s rapid adoption concerning online shopping as well as the digital features that they opt in conformity to do online shopping from the security of their homes.
“E-commerce is a robust tool specifically for smaller businesses – remain with the retail operators or merchants offering wider features ranging from the home maintenance to the professional services. Our SimplyBlu board has witnessed in excess of over one hundred percentage surge during the COVID-19 period, with commercial enterprise owners increasingly realising the advantages regarding working their corporations concerning on line platforms,” says Zulu.
Candy Smith, a fashion designer, opened an on-line store using SimplyBlu, where she formed a surface mask-making business. In promptly March, he used to be selling greater than 200 masks a day. By the end concerning May, that reached upon 1,500 masks a season for odd income yet invulnerable.
About Standard Bank Group
Standard Bank Group is the largest African bank by assets with a unique footprint across 20 African countries. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, we are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with share code SBK, and the Namibian Stock Exchange, share code SNB.
Standard Bank has a 156-year history in South Africa and started building a franchise outside southern Africa in the early 1990s.
Our strategic position, which enables us to connect Africa to other select emerging markets as well as pools of capital in developed markets, and our balanced portfolio of businesses, provide significant opportunities for growth.
The group has more than 53 000 employees, approximately 1 200 branches and over 9 000 ATMs on the African continents, which enable it to deliver a complete range of services across personal and business banking, corporate and investment banking and wealth management.
Headline earnings for 2018 were R27.9 billion (about USD2.1 billion) and total assets were R2.1 trillion (about USD148 billion). Standard Bank’s market capitalisation at 31 December 2018 was R289 billion (USD20 billion).
The group’s largest shareholder is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest bank, with a 20,1% shareholding. In addition, Standard Bank Group and ICBC share a strategic partnership that facilitates trade and deal flow between Africa, China and select emerging markets.
