Stanbic Bank recently hosted a team of students from Harvard Business School (HBS) as part of Field Global Immersion programme, a required first-year course at HBS.

Stanbic Bank was selected as one of 157 FIELD Global Partners in 13 countries around the world. Together these Global Partners combined to host more than 920 Harvard Business School students in all.

Ben Mensah, West Africa Head of Wealth, Standard Bank and the Executive Sponsor of Digitisation at Stanbic Bank Ghana said: “We are pleased to be working with Harvard Business School to provide students with a real-world learning experience in Ghana.”

The FIELD Global Immersion is a course designed to strengthen and develop students’ global intelligence – their ability to manage and operate effectively across cultures and business contexts. Stanbic executives had been working with the team remotely in the months leading up to their arrival in country.

While here, the students pitched their ideas to the leadership team, conducted field research with consumers around Accra and presented their final recommendations to management. The purpose of this immersive experience is to provide students with the opportunity to do real fieldwork in an unfamiliar context.

“We feel certain that the students were able to gather insights here that they would never be able to glean from a classroom discussion alone,” Ben Mensah added.

Harvard is quick to acknowledge that this important learning experience would not be possible without the Global Partners.

“We are extremely grateful to Stanbic Bank and all the FIELD Global Partner organizations for all they do on behalf of our students,” said Professor Juan Alcacer, the faculty head of FIELD. “The students benefit immeasurably from this experience and we hope the partner organizations do as well.”

The collaboration is part of the broader agenda of Stanbic Bank to be at the forefront of innovation in the country, an agenda that has in recent times led to the development of simple product solutions for customers.

Such solutions include MobyCash, which won best Cash Management Solution for the 2019 Global Finance Innovators Award. MobyCash is a secure cash pick-up solution designed to give customers instant value. With this innovation, customers no longer have to wait for several hours after cash-pick to receive value in their accounts. Stanbic Bank was among the top 10 banks globally to win this award which covered the following sectors: Cash Management, Corporate Finance, Islamic Finance, Payments and Trade Finance.