Johannesburg, 12 Aug 2011
Members of FNB's rewards programme, eBucks, are becoming increasingly 'savvy' in how they earn eBucks and have begun to change their banking and shopping behaviour to maximise their rewards.
So says FNB as it revealed that eBucks members have spent R1.5 billion worth of eBucks of the total R2 billion allocated since the programme was rolled out in October 2000. According to FNB, over the past year, eBucks members spent 24% more of their eBucks, and earned 26% more than they did compared to the previous year.
In addition, it adds, members also started to use their eBucks rewards to extend their purchasing power.
Jolande Duvenage, eBucks' CEO, says this growth is an encouraging sign for eBucks' over 2.3 million members. “We measure the success of our programme by the 'spend to earn' ratio. This compares the rate members earn eBucks to the rate at which members spend their eBucks.
“Currently, eBucks members' average spend to earn ratio exceeds 80%, which is much higher than that compared to the international rewards benchmark, which is between 60% and 70%,” she says.
“We noticed that our members were increasingly using their eBucks to stretch their wallets. As members began to feel the effects of the recession, they became skilled at maximising the amount of eBucks they earned by swiping their FNB cheque and credit cards to pay for their purchases.”
Another contributing factor to the growth in spend, says Duvenage, was the addition of relevant spend partners over the years including Makro, Engen, Incredible Connection, Cape Union Mart and more recently Dis-Chem. Fuel purchases at participating Engen garages have become a firm favourite, with eBucks members spending a substantial amount of eBucks at participating Engen service stations since December 2009, she adds.
However, Richard Hurst, Ovum's emerging markets analyst, says though most South African banks are introducing a plethora of loyalty and reward programmes, the majority are not doing enough to educate clients on the benefits of such initiatives. “The real problem facing local banks is addressing the unbanked. They should look at ways to increase banking penetration in the country.”
He urges the banks to educate their customers on the real value added by these reward programmes. Hurst believes that awareness of the loyalty programmes is very small among the South African populace.
He, therefore, urges the financial institutions to look at other innovative ways to increase awareness. These include mobile banking, Internet banking and other self-service platforms.
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