Mobile banking hits SA

By Basheera Khan for Nedbank
Johannesburg, 20 Apr 2000

With the launch of their respective mobile banking offerings this week, NBS and Nedbank have beaten major competitors in bringing basic Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-enabled financial services to market. The banks released their WAP applications to the public within hours of each other, in a race to be the first mobile online banks.

Mosaic Software, a member of the e-commerce division of Comparex Holdings, developed the NBS WAP site, while Nedbank`s NedMobile WAP services were implemented in-house.

NedMobile was first announced by Nedbank and Nedtel Cellular in November last year. At the time, Nedbank stated that the service would be made available to clients as soon as the security layer became available.

The service allows clients to make payments and transfers, draw balances and make purchases. It also provides services such as browsing the Internet in search of specific information including stock prices, sports results and news.

NBS`s offering provides similar functionality. Clients will be able to do multiple balance inquiries, money transfers, bill payments and lost card notifications, as well as access to banking information at all times. Both mobile banking offerings are certified 128-bit secure by the South African Certification Agency.

Despite its rosy potential, market penetration of WAP-enabled technology and return on investment on behalf of the banks will be a considerable time in coming. Neil Lightfoot, BMI-TechKnowledge analyst, believes the high cost of both service and compatible handsets will be a major inhibitor to the adoption of mobile usage penetration into the lower end of the market, which constitutes a significant percentage of mobile phone users in SA.

Other South African banks are working on similar offerings, but admit to approaching the issue from a different perspective.

William Ramwell, head of public relations for FNB, says that while the bank does plan on introducing WAP-enabled banking to its client base before the end of this year, it is happy for now to observe the obvious teething problems from a distance. "The need for mobile banking services is driven by demand; at the moment, WAP-enabled banking is not a top priority for us."

Standard Bank`s director of customer electronic delivery, Dave Parratt sums up: "We are doing something to bring mobile banking to our customers - but we`re not relying solely on WAP. We`re currently working towards a combination of WAP and other aspects of cellular functionality such as SMS.

"The problem with [mobile banking using] WAP is that there are just not enough WAP-enabled cellphones out there, and standards are not at a mature level. We don`t believe WAP will be fully mature for another two years," he says.

"We`re working to provide our customers with access to mobile banking across normal cellphones using applications that are as powerful as WAP, if not more. Implementing technology for technology`s sake is not going to do anything for our customers."