Cellphone banking: a tipping point?

This is according to Yolande van Wyk, of FNB, who addressed delegates at the Thinking Mobile Conference hosted today, Thursday, 20 August 2009, at the IDC Conference Centre in Sandton, Johannesburg.

In December 2008, FNB sent 67 million SMSes and, in June 2009, 56 500 new customers started using the bank's full cellphone banking service, and at the end of June 2009 FNB had 1.5 million customers registered for its various interactive cellphone banking services, van Wyk added.

“All four major SA banks”

“All four major South African banks have launched or relaunched a cellphone banking offering, which has moved from a ‘first-to-market' product to a significant transaction channel for banks, with millions of transactions worth hundred millions of rands per month reported.

“Yes, this has made a huge impact on business and a proliferation of technology and business models has been adopted.”

FNB is thought to have processed transactions worth R619 million by June 2009.

The bank is said to be capitalising on this national success to launch, consolidate or develop existing cellphone banking-related services to other African countries, namely Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Lesotho and Botswana.

Cellphone banking's prepaid sales account for 13% of FNB mobile banking revenues, worth more than R500 million per month and growing.

Access channel and wallet

“Cellphone banking is affordable, makes banking cheaper and is available when one needs it,” van Wyk said, adding that mobile as access channel and a wallet is everything because people can use it to purchase airtime, make person-to-person payments and other useful transactions.

“Banked customers will use cellphone banking to access their accounts,” she said.

“It solves one of the fundamental challenges in providing entry level bank accounts. It has to be simple, intuitive and will need and keep on changing.

However, she insisted that marketing, customer education and staff training is a key driver of cellphone banking.

Experiencing problems

Despite the success of the service, many consumers have reportedly been experiencing problems with cellphone banking, which range from WAP logging in, availability and reliability, among others.

Van Wyk explained, “On availability, I must say that we depend entirely on the cellphone network operators, with whom we have a close relationship and consider as strategic partners.”

“Major customer awareness and education campaigns have been undertaken by all banks, with collective marketing spend estimated at over R100 million for the past year,” she said.

Bizcommunity.com was a media partner of the Thinking Mobile Conference Series. For more, go to www.mobilemarketingwinners.com and www.mymobworld.com .