Now prepaid airtime purchases cross borders

The new service comes after two years of development of a mobile transfer system that allows real-time cross-border prepaid airtime using Cellphone Banking from the bank. This is only the first phase of the project and FNB plans to expand the service to a number of other African countries.

FNB Mobile and Transact Solutions Head of Expansion, Yolande van Wyk, says the new service means that Namibians working in South Africa can send airtime to family members in Namibia, where at least 80% of cellphone users are prepaid customers.

Van Wyk says at present only the bank's Cellphone Banking customers here in SA can make a prepaid airtime purchase, for an individual who uses Namibia's mobile network service provider - MTC (Mobile Telecommunications Limited), but the cross-border prepaid airtime purchase is conducted in real-time and is available 24 hours a day.

The purchases are capped at a daily limit of R1 000, but the bank's customers have the option to reduce their daily limit.