FNB has enhanced its SMS bank account notification service, inContact, to give users the ability to transact on their cellphones, free of bank charges, says Michael Jordaan, CEO of FNB.
The move, says Jordaan, will transform inContact from being a simple notification service to an interactive channel that provides FNB customers direct access to their banking information, including buying prepaid airtime.
In the past, inContact had a limited service of only allowing customers to receive SMS or e-mail notifications of their account activities. But now the extended service gives users the ability to check account balances and purchase prepaid airtime.
According to Jordaan, this has resulted in a boom of cellphone-based transactions. Within three months of going live with the new inContact service, FNB has seen 289 000 transactions coming in within one month. "In comparison, it took FNB's cellphone banking nine months to reach the 289 000 transactions per month mark. Moreover, the new and improved service was able to attract over 117 000 active customers in 72 days, while cellphone banking only achieved this after two years," says Jordaan.
FNB has made a significant step towards mobile commerce, says Sizwe Nxasana, CEO of FirstRand Bank: "The evolution of technology, coupled with increased convergence of banking and telecommunications, is creating cost-effective ways for FNB to service its customers, while at the same time lowering costs for end-users to do banking."
FNB has waived MOPIN requirements, which is normally used in cellphone banking, while the service is limited to the value of R200 worth of transactions per month. Jordaan points out that FNB has noticed a growing trend where users are registering for the full cellphone banking service after sampling the inContact service. The full features of cellphone banking allows users to conduct more banking transactions, online purchases, account money transfer and buying prepaid for others.
Len Pienaar, CEO for FNB Mobile Solutions and Transact, predicts that mobile transactions are the future of banking. "The enhanced inContact service allows four million qualifying inContact customers to use their cellphone as a mobile wallet. Customers can interactively access their account on their cellphone by dialing *120*321#."
FNB has already seen 18 000 customers upgrading to the full banking services after working with inContact, Pienaar adds.
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