By Princewill Ekwujuru

African immigrants living and working outside their home countries have been on the increase annually. The 2008 World Bank estimate of remittances made by Africans in Diaspora was put at over $380billion, and still rising. Therefore,  there is  need for a banking institution to position itself as the institution for people to do their desired financial transactions wherever they may be world over.

Some Diaspora communities maintain strong political ties with their homeland. Other factors that may be typical of many diaspora are thoughts of return, relationships with other communities in the  diaspora.

As part of continued efforts to position itself to meet the needs of the African, recently, Ecobank Nigeria launched a special product crafted for Africans living and working away from their home country called the Ecobank Africa Diaspora Account. It was conceived to meet the financial needs of people in the African Diaspora.

It structures the bank’s services to support the African professional, the potential business of Africans in the Diaspora by banking them effectively and providing well packaged financial services to them. Given the current trend in Globalization facilitated by telecommunications, information Technology and E-commerce, Ecobank has promised to use all her available resources and infrastructure to adequately cover the sector.

According to the Product Manager, Vivienne Ijomah, the account is a multicurrency deposit liability and transactional product which facilitates creation of banking relationships with African migrants within and outside Africa. “Given the immediate and future scope of Ecobank Africa Diaspora Account, we will roll out the product in two phases,” she said.

“Phase one (which we are now experiencing) focuses on Africans living in Africa but outside their home country, that is, those living within Africa. We have the capacity to do an end-to-end processing of a non-resident account through Ecobank designated branches in our affiliates. Phase two will focus on those living outside Africa.

“This pre-supposes that such Ecobank Diaspora Account customer shall maintain regular current and Savings Account in our affiliates where he or she resides and work. A one-time account package shall be completed, which will be used to open another account in his or her affiliate of residence and a non-resident account back home,” she said.

She noted that Ecobank Diaspora Account is targeted at Africans working away from home, especially Embassy staff of countries where Ecobank is represented; staff of international organizations and multinational companies with regional presence across Africa. Ecobank Nigeria is a member of the Ecobank Group and the holding company for Ecobank Group is Ecobank Transnational Incorporated.

The bank has the vision to become not just a world-class bank, but to advance the continent’s economic and financial development. Ecobank is Africa’s leading regional financial institution with operations in 32 countries across the African continent. The Group also has international presence in Dubai, China, United Kingdom and France.