Older banks to follow FNB's lead in mobile banking

WANETSHA MOSINYI
Staff Writer | Friday August 14, 2009 00:00

The two banks will have a tall order catching up with First National Bank of Botswana which launched its mobile banking six years ago and has since become the most used bank in the country.

Last year it announced it had recorded a milestone in the channel's history by breaking through the one million pula prepaid cellphone sales mark.

According to a FinScope Botswana 2009 Survey released last week, nearly half of Botswana's adult population remains unbanked and there has been little progress since 2004. The survey shows that 48 percent of the adult population remains unbanked while only 41 percent of the population currently uses banking services.

The FinScope survey also covers lifestyle attributes of the population and asset ownership. In this regard, perhaps one of the more striking statistics is that 85 percent of the population owns cellphones.

'As this includes many 'unbanked' adults, this suggests that cellphone-based remittance and banking services may be one way to extend the reach of financial services to the poor,' the survey noted.

Perhaps it is because of this survey, which Barclays and Standard Chartered also sponsored, that the two banks announced the launch of these products in the same week.

At the media launch of the online and mobile banking services on Wednesday, Standard Chartered said it would become the first bank in the country to offer the services for free.  Stanchart's Head of Consumer Banking, Michael Wiegard, said these services would be launched on August 16 and be accessible throughout the bank's branch network across the country.

'We are very excited to be bringing these world-class products because they will dramatically change the way our customers interact with the bank,' he said.

Wiegard said they will offer both services for free and that the bank had negotiated lower rates with mobile operators Mascom and Orange in order to provide affordable banking to Batswana.

'These products have won awards and recognition globally and we are proud to bring them to Botswana,' he said. 'We will continue to add features to these products to keep them ahead of the pack in terms of functionality.'

Not to be outdone, Barclays has launched mobile banking product called Hello Money.
The bank says in a statement that the new initiative is aimed at allowing customers to make transactions such as account enquiries, fund transfers, bill payments and mobile recharges.

'This is a great achievement for us as a business,' said the Managing Director of Barclays, Thuli Johnson. 'Customers are at the heart of everything we do and Barclays continues to competitively cater for each customer segment in terms of channels, products and service.'

Former FNBB CEO Danny Zandamela, said last year that their cellphone banking success was  attributable to its ability to constantly improve accessibility and increase the variety of service offerings to its customers, ensuring relevance and convenience at all times.

'When considering the extreme penetration that cellphones have in our country, cellphone banking is the obvious step in making banking more accessible,' Zandamela said at the time. 'The cellphone has become an integral part of our lifestyles.'

FNBB harnessed the power and functionality of the cellphones six years ago when it introduced inContact, a free message service that sends customers real time SMS confirmation of all transactions taking place on their FNBB accounts. Currently, in excess of 60,0000 customers receive these SMS notifications.

Cellphone banking effectively reaches the masses at even the most rural recesses of the country, enabling customers to satisfactorily conclude their transactions for such services as prepaid airtime and prepaid electricity through the bank because cellphone coverage and penetration is constantly growing in Botswana.

The introduction of on-line and mobile banking is also expected to reduce the queues that have become synonymous with banking halls in Botswana.