One billion on cellphone banking over Christmas

First National Bank (FNB) Cellphone Banking hit record levels during the festive season, with R1 billion worth of banking conducted in 10 million transactions.  This exceeded the previous year’s Cellphone Banking use by more than 100%.

“Cellphone Banking has truly come of age in South Africa and is now becoming the preferred choice of banking. The high adoption rates we’ve experienced show that it’s a trusted and convenient channel for customers to perform a wide range of transactions from checking balances to buying prepaid airtime and LOTTO tickets or paying bills,” says Len Pienaar, CEO of FNB mCommerce.

In November 2009 FNB introduced Send Money – a solution allowing FNB customers to instantly transfer money to anyone with a South African cellphone number. The value of transactions on Send Money reached R6 million in December alone.

The purchases of LOTTO tickets are also popular, with more than 150 000 tickets sold in December. FNB is still the only bank offering this service on its Cellphone Banking channel, it is also available through FNB Internet Banking and FNB ATMs

“Although we have seen our growth primarily coming from our mainstream customers during 2009, December has seen a strong usage from our traditional and more affluent customers. This is typical for December as these customers are away from home and work and don’t have access to their traditional banking channels.  Cellphone Banking then becomes the preferred alternative,” concludes Pienaar.