Big-four bank FNB is looking to pump more money into its contact centre solutions, to better service clients amid the challenges brought by load-shedding.
So said FNB CEO Jacques Celliers in an interview, after the company last week announced its interim financial results for the six months ending 31 December.
According to Celliers, as South Africa continues to be beset by power cuts, the bank is making significant investments in alternative energy solutions to ensure minimal service disruptions during load-shedding.
In the wide-ranging interview, he highlighted the bank’s digital channels, which have continued to grow amid the energy crisis.
Celliers acknowledged that among the other challenges facing the country, electricity shortages continue to put financial strain on customers.
He pointed out the bank is assisting customers with funding for alternative energy sources, such as solar.
Continuity concerns
Amid these challenges, Celliers believes the contact centre will play a crucial role in ensuring the bank remains stable.
One thing on top of his to-do list is to ensure the bank minimises the number of frustrating dropped calls in the contact centre.
“As a bank, we are really trying to make sure our customers don’t experience poor service or instability because of load-shedding. So, we are investing heavily to ensure our infrastructure is always up and stable,” said Celliers.
At the branches, the bank is investing in alternative energy sources to keep the lights on when Eskom trips.
“If you go into our branches these days, even when the lights are off, people in our branches will always be working…despite the disruptions in energy supply.
“One of the things we are working hard on is to remove the risk of dropped calls when customers phone us. We are working hard to ensure we have secure chat and mail on our platform to be the trusted mechanism where people can interact with us.
“We want to remove the need for disruptive contact centre infrastructure experiences. That’s a big investment area for us at the moment – to make sure that our platforms can be relied on for stability.
“I don’t think there is any business at the moment in South Africa that is not investing in solar or alternative energy. I think that’s all part of the game now.”
He pointed out that many of FNB’s ATMs are already off-grid and require big backup infrastructure to stay on during blackouts.
However, he lamented that just like telcos, the bank is being hit by theft and vandalism of infrastructure.
Remodelled branch
Unlike its peers which have closed many of their branches as more customers go digital, FNB still sees value in the traditional bank branch, Celliers said.
However, he pointed out the bank has taken a different approach to building these physical structures over the years.
“Remember our technology platform is not in competition with the branch. In fact, in our branch, our frontline is using the [technology] platform. So, we are committed and still motivated to invest in our own infrastructure and points of presence in every community.
“It’s not about getting more branches, but smaller branches than we have traditionally had, because through our platform we can do so much with so much less. That makes us very nimble, because we used to be constrained in regards to where to put branches, but now we can put a branch next to every little grocer or every trade or market centre.
“Even in the branches, we are rolling out a lot of infrastructure – as long as there is a little bit of sunlight, we can use solar. Generators have always been our primary backup solution but we are transitioning to other energy solutions to ensure stability.”
While the branch remains relevant to FNB, Celliers noted the bank’s digital channels continued to soar in the reporting period.
Digital logins on the FNB digital interfaces during the period exceeded 878 million, with the FNB app contributing 603 million logins. The app’s active transactional users surpassed five million, setting a new monthly record of 103 million logins in October 2022.
This, as appetite for digital payments continues to rise, with customers making 41.9 million smart device payments, with 3.9 million virtual cards and R15 billion in payments.
“What’s good about our digital interfaces is that they are trusted. Every innovation that we bring is always done on the platform. To solve your servicing needs – from a simple thing like getting your statement, to a complex thing like investing offshore – all those things are all getting nice momentum through modernisation,” he said.
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