Absa has signed up more than 500 000 online banking customers and says Internet banking is now on a par with its other channels and integral to its service offerings.
The bank says the 500 000th customer was signed up in December, eight years after it started providing online banking services which initially offered only statements and account information.
Some 420 000 of the customers are individuals and the balance are small businesses.
Christo Vrey, Absa`s manager of digital channels, says the bank now conducts about 3.5 million financial transactions (payments to third-parties) amounting to R230 billion per month over its Internet banking service. Value-added services, which include monitoring of clients` investment portfolios and statement requests, account for over R35 million per month.
"Another measure of how important online banking has become for the bank is that the information requests from our mainframe computers equals that from other channels such as the branches and ATM network."
According to Very, Absa is still growing its online banking service with between 12 000 and 15 000 customers signing up every month.
"The two main limitations to online banking has been Internet accessibility and affordable communications costs."
He says customer interest in Internet banking grew tremendously last year despite the publicity surrounding the ongoing Bellville fraud case where a number of the bank`s clients allegedly lost R600 000 due to someone using their passwords to complete transactions.
The case forced Absa and the other commercial banks to enhance their online security measures.
The most recent enhancements to Absa`s service notifies customers via SMS when there is activity on their Internet banking service. They are able to choose which activities they would like to be made aware of.
"Adequate fraud prevention measures that exploit the efficiency of new technologies and address customers` individual security needs have also been put in place," says Juliette du Preez, managing executive of delivery channel services.
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