In the advent of increased bank frauds from unscrupulous conmen that have been fleecing unsuspecting bank customers hundreds of thousands of money, equity bank has rolled out  a universal one number that will be used to communicate to its 14 million customers across the region.

The move comes in the wake of the current pandemic and advancement in technology, which has seen majority of the banks customers use their mobile devices for communication and banking services.

 The launch of the One Number: 0763000000, means that equity bank will only call its customers through the number. This will ensure the banks customers transact conveniently and in a secure environment since the number is easily identifiable at a glance.

All Equity staff, whether it is your branch manager, relationship manager, account opening  officer, credit or loan officer, insurance, agriculture officer, procurement manager, investment advisor, shares buying or selling they will all call you using the ONE Number.

The ONE Equity number is for all outgoing calls, customers will not be able to call back the number. However, customers can talk to the bank 24/7 by calling 100 if using Equitel, or 0763063000 from any mobile network.

The rolling out of the universal ONE number is part of the bank’s recent rebranding aimed at improving customer experience by ensuring its customers can easily identify calls made by the bank, a move that will significantly deter fraud through call impersonations.

In the changing global landscape, where volumes of digital payments are increasing and payments are being processed in seconds, fraudsters are creatively finding new ways to steal from banks and their customers.

According to reports from KPMG global banking survey of 2019, banks globally are seeing an increasing trend in scams. Fraudsters are manipulating and coercing customers into making payments to them by bypassing bank controls.

The survey observes that retail banks experienced increases in total fraud value and volume. Fraud cases that increased included identity theft, account take over, card not present and authorized push payment scams.

The move by Equity bank to introduce one number is aimed at curbing and protecting its customers from fraudsters.

Through the launch of the ONE number, Equity will present itself as a unified brand, a one stop shop offering integrated financial services under one roof.

“The number embodies this goal by unifying all its outbound communications to external stakeholders. Our customers will now know which number Equity staff engages them with making it easy for them to identify bank calls,” said Dr James Mwangi while launching the ONE number.

The bank has called on its customers to be cautious and disregard communication purporting to be from equity that does not originate from this number.

 “All calls from equity will be from one number, 0763000000, if any one calls you purporting to be an equity staff and the caller ID is not 0763000000 do not engage them instead report the number by sending it to 333,” said the bank.

While communicating to customers about system upgrade, the official bank notification SMS will only come from Equity bank or Equitel. And any customers facing challenges with a platform should call the bank for support via 0763063000 the official contact centre number.

The bank will however never ask for personal information such as account number, card number or PIN number.

According to Equity bank, the measures are part of the bank’s strategy to cushion its customers from falling to crafty tactics used by fraudsters such as account suspension threats which are widely used to scare customers to share information with urgency.