Customers rush to 20Twenty

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 07 Jun 2004

Online bank 20Twenty, which is now owned by UK-based Standard Chartered, says more than 4 000 new customers have signed up since it reopened its doors a month ago.

20Twenty, which was originally owned by now-defunct Saambou, drifted for 18 months in liquidation after its parent went under. However, late last year, the South African operation of Standard Chartered bought 20Twenty from its liquidators for less than $10 million, supplied a new banking licence and recapitalised the operation.

"Reopening for business has been a difficult time for us, but we are slowly getting to where we want to be," says Christo Davel, 20Twenty founder and head of Standard Chartered`s SA retail banking operations.

This weekend marked the official relaunch of 20Twenty with advertisements placed in most of the major media outlets pushing the message that the bank is back for good.

"The message is that this bank is not just about technology - we will bore our current and potential clients with that - it is a bank that offers a real service at a cost that is a lot less than that of the other major banks," Davel says.

Currently 20Twenty only offers one product - a hybrid credit card/transmission/savings account called the TwentyOne Account. However, there are plans to introduce a garage card, home loans and other services later in the year.

"Right now we want people to be intrigued by our value proposition. We offer a sliding scale of fees that are capped at R100 per month so that people who use their banking facilities less frequently are not punished and neither are those who need to use their facilities often," Davel says.

Another feature of the marketing campaign is that 20Twenty will pay all customers` costs of moving bank accounts to 20Twenty and if clients are not "100% satisfied" within three months, will then move them back to their original bank.

20Twenty has just over 40 000 customers and is hoping to have abut 300 000 within the next five years, which will mean capturing about 10% of the total banking client base.