Avo by Nedbank

A digital marketplace that offers a world of products and services at your fingertips, the first South African “Super App” enabling digital engagements between consumers and businesses that join our “marketplace”, with a vision to address the daily needs of clients at the comfort of their homes and in so doing provide convenient, safe and secure online purchases, all in one digital platform.

Innovation presentation

What is Avo

• Avo is the first South African “Super App” enabling digital engagements between consumers and businesses that join our “marketplace”. The “marketplace” enables the selling and receiving of payments securely

• Avo’s vision is to address the daily needs of clients and in so doing provide convenient, safe and secure online purchases such as groceries, essential household services, beauty, baby, technology, digital, entertainment products including the next family holiday etc. using a digital wallet embedded in the Avo Super App.

• Utilizing Avo’s sophisticated digital distribution logistics enables fast and efficient nation-wide delivery of goods purchased on the Super App.

• Avo provides access to great value goods and services digitally at the clients fingertips.

Uniqueness of the project

• The first at creating a platform business model in South Africa.

• Avo is not only for Nedbank clients but for all South Africans, irrespective who they bank with.

• Nedbank’s aspiration is to be ‘Africa’s #1 digital financial services provider’ supported by our reimagined future to be ‘Digital 1st & 1st in Digital’ and our beyond banking client journeys and CVPs.

• Globally there has been an increase of platform revolution scaling and disrupting traditional business models.

• At Nedbank, we saw this as an opportunity and aligned our platform aspirations to our Digital Roadmap.

• Nedbank embarked on developing a platform business from within, with a start-up mentality, to drive quick to market client centric solutions with the client at the heart of everything that we do, pivoting to their needs.

The Reason Behind

Market opportunity

• Bringing disparate value creators into a single platform for the sole purpose of the consumers convenience and choice.

• Embedding financial servcices in customer journeys (consumers and businesses) as they fulfill everyday needs and wants.

• Avo was released to Nedbank staff in Beta phase on the 23rd March 2020, a few days before lockdown in South Africa as result of the COVID pandemic. The platform was lifestyle focused with features like get movies and experiential activities. These features were prohibited during stringent lockdown protocols and the platform had to pivot within a week to support our staff during lockdown providing critical solutions like essential goods and services. Pivoting early during the COVID pandemic demonstrated Nedbank’s agility, delivering solutions at high velocity to meet client needs during this challenging time and beyond.

• Avo has been built with key foundational capabilities such as Data / Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, Bank Grade Security authentication, enhanced wallet payment features and cloud technologies.

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Response to a specific issue

• Create ecosystem value for smaller South African businesses to bring them online, reach new audiences and provide stability to the small business Market.

• Avo was released to the public in June 2020 during the national lockdown with enhanced features to meet the growing needs of clients during the pandemic.

• In South Africa, we are the only app offering clients multiple journeys in a single point to conveniently meet their daily needs.

• The platform / Super App has been evolving at a rapid pace that has seen:

o Partnerships with the JHI Property Company to enable Sandton City & Nelson Mandela Square as one of the 1st Digital Mall concepts in South Africa.

o Integrating into logistic providers allowing SME businesses access to the whole of South Africa.

o Enabling wine farms to access a captive audience and broaden their reach.

o Creating a loyalty exchange, with the first partner being Nedbank Greenbacks and their clients having access to over 19 000 businesses to spend their points.

o Within the first year of launch we have exceeded 330 000 clients registered on the platform.

Challenges

• Having to compete in the platform space with the constraints of being a bank (a highly regulated environment

• Integrating banking propositions within an e-commerce space.

• Ito the platform business model, ensuring the stability of supply and demand for both consumer and merchant markets.

• Technology, go-to-market deployments and roll out plans, Budgets, Speed to market, resource allocation and consumer buy-in are some of the key challenges Avo has faced to date.

• Being the first-to-market and with aspirations to be the first-to-scale, as our platform applications and products landscape evolves and grows, we are certain to encounter new problems and opportunities which are unique to this landscape, and as such we will continue to chart new paths.

• We assess the Avo environment (people, processes, tools, and architecture) on a regular basis and endeavor to implement improvements as the platform grows in functionalities and capabilities to meet both business and consumer needs.

Results

Avo has realized net new benefits of nonbanking revenue, and cross-sell leads and sales into financial services products, given it has only been in market for just over a year. It is broadening the reach of Nedbank’s consumer base. Banks face several challenges in meeting clients needs and remaining relevant in the new age digitally advance market and landscape they operate in.

Nedbank is the first bank in South Africa to launch a super app that is targeted at all South Africans, irrespective who they bank with.

This directive with the consumers needs at the heart of its existence will enable Nedbank to:

- Remain relevant : More than a bank, enabling all South Africans to live their best lives, do shopping across categories at the comfort of their homes all in a safe and secure platform.

- Offer Convenience: Provide safe and secure online purchases such as groceries, essential household services, beauty, baby, technology, digital, entertainment products including the next family holiday etc. using a digital wallet embedded in the Avo Super App.

- Be Responsive: Understand consumer needs – how consumers spend their money, where they send their money and be there to “serve” and grant access to meet their needs. Offer world class CX and UX to ensure they come back to the platform (repeat purchase/ usage).

- Quality/ Reliability: Reputation is key. Offer business and clients a Bank grade secure, safe digital platform.

Avo is by Nedbank and is for all south Africans.

The super app has big plans to drive scale by launching more categories to continuously offer consumers convenience and expand into other African regions in the near future.