Czech Consulting Firm Revolutionizes Mobile Banking at Nedbank: The Rise of AVO Super App in South Africa

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It started in 2016, when the Prague consulting firm Enrian Partners, was led by a former employee of the McKinsey consulting firm. Enriquem Scopou received in Republic of South Africa project to create mobile banking for Nedbank. It is the fourth largest bank in the country, just slightly less than Czech Savings Bank.

At that time, Scopa invited the Czech company Bell & Hurry to collaborate, whose task was to analyze the market situation and propose the design of the application. The Prague technology company Zentity, which deals with software development and mobile banking, got to program all this work, for example for Raiffeisebank or a parent bank of ČSOB.

“Nedbank’s problem at the time was that their original retail digital banking was not user-friendly for private clients. That’s why Nedbanka wanted to “swing” into the 21st century through a new digital banking project especially for private clients,” says Bell & Hurry boss Lukáš Zazvonil.

Nedbank is strong in serving private clients and wanted to create a modern application for financial management and communication with the bank for its thousands of affluent customers.

“At that time, there was no research that showed what private clients needed from digital banking. Together with Nedbank, we therefore invited several millionaires and billionaires to personal interviews, where we determined in detail their needs,” says Zazvonil.

These people do not care about managing their own portfolio on a day to day basis. A team of private bankers helps them with this. However, they want to get an overview of their finances and monitor how their investment portfolio is doing. At the same time, they could communicate in real time with the banker through a secure chat, which was not yet common in banking at that time.

“Relatively quickly, the first version of the application was created, which was still not perfect. It was a pilot, but the response from the clients was still excellent, they were enthusiastic. Gradually we made small changes, but the work of the project gradually decreased. Before the pandemic, the project budget was cut and in the end we had to stop completely in 2021,” said Zazvonil.

The application was then rated by the consulting firm Cutter Associates as the second best mobile banking application for private banking worldwide.

While for Bell & Hurry it was an “only” order in the order of millions of crowns, in total the project, even with development, went up to millions of euros. Enrian Partners gradually stopped working on the project and remained Zentity’s software solution providers. This company was founded in Prague by a businessman of Indian origin Abhishek Balaria along with Roman Makovčák.

From making mobile games, they quickly moved on, for example, to programming mobile payment gateways and especially banking applications, but they also programmed applications for the operator Vodafone, Get upor maybe Seznam.cz (owner of the server Seznam Zpravy).

Czech companies were therefore working first on changing their application for other markets and also for small clients. For example, it was a simple chatbot that gave advice on saving for school fees for a child, for retirement or for worse times.

However, the project was changed to much bigger plans within Nedbank after the pandemic. “We first developed a banking application and later became one of their main suppliers for the development of an integrated digital market (the so-called Super App). Although these applications are not so common in Europe, they have been very effective in Asian markets, for example platforms like Alipay and WeChat in China,” he tells pro SZ Byznys Zentity Director of Strategy Frank Gotthardt.

The Avo app is a digital marketplace that connects consumers, businesses that offer various products and services with consumers. It works as a “super app” that goes beyond traditional banking services. In addition to Alipay, it is comparable to Amazon or other Chinese markets Since at least That’s all.

It offers grocery shopping and delivery, but you can also buy solar panels through it, which is gaining momentum in South Africa, including home import and installation. You can use it to pay, book a hotel or concert ticket, or buy a car and insurance. Even a Ferrari was sold through it.

“We have our own logistics and hundreds of merchants offer products on our platform, from phone shops to refrigerators. For example, we have made a contract with plumbers that you order at home, and we also do warranty repairs. But the main idea is cross-selling, ie to offer the bank’s products as much as possible, such as insurance or loans for solar panels or mortgage refinancing,” he told SZ Byznys. Amjid Aliwho is Head of Digital Services at Nedbank and is leading the development of the AVO Super App.

According to him, the application currently has more than a million registered users, although there are disproportionately fewer active users. In addition to the Republic of South Africa, according to Ali, the bank plans to expand to neighboring Namibia, which is a less populated country, but whose economy is growing rapidly.

The app competes indirectly with retail chains including Amazon and telecom operators. It can offer lower prices because it combines the sale of multiple services, thus maintaining a profit.

The company Zentity, based in Holešovice in Prague, is still the main provider of the software solution. “He’s an important client for us. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you any financial information,” concluded Frank Gotthardt, a German who settled in Prague two decades ago.