Absa confirmed yesterday that it plans to cut off free Internet access for non-account holders early next year. Users who decide not to take up Absa membership will be given three months notice before termination of the service beginning in January next year.
The plan stems from the recommendations of the Absa E-Commerce Task Team established earlier this year to investigate the "acceleration" of the bank`s e-business strategy. Other changes in strategy include the recently announced e-security product offering for secure online shopping.
Santie Botha, Absa group director, said the bank has already initiated discussions with other Internet service providers for the take-up of non-Absa clients, but was not willing to disclose the parties the bank was talking to in this regard.
"Absa will now negotiate the best deal possible with service providers in the industry for subscribers who choose not to become Absa customers," she said.
Tasso Tsoulakis, GM of Absa Group Marketing, said Absa currently has 160 000 active members with as many as 250 000 users having signed up since the service was introduced earlier this year. He added that 50 000 of the active membership are not Absa account holders.
Tsoulakis said minimum criteria would be applied to Absa clients to qualify for the free service. Individual customers will be required to have a cheque account and one other account with the bank, and business clients will have to have a cheque account and one other business account.
Botha said uptake of the service had far exceeded expectations and the two-year targets had been achieved within the first six months. The service, which cost the bank R45 million for the year, was described by Botha as being very successful. "Income generation from the online offering has been phenomenal."
Louis von Zeuner, group executive director, said Absa experienced a 67% growth in Internet banking clients from January, to 250 000 users in October. The value of transactions conducted by Internet banking clients had increased to R6.2 billion from R3.3 billion over the same period.
Botha confirmed that Absa had to buy back the user database from Affinity Internet last month when the bank announced it was planning to switch to ICL for technology services for the free offering. She said, however, that this amount was included in the R45 million cost for the year.
Share