The past year saw record numbers in online banking transactions being made via Absa's online portal, with the bank announcing yesterday that the tally reached the trillion-rand mark.
Absa says this figure includes individuals and small businesses that use its online banking. “For the first time in any calendar year, 2011 has seen us break through the trillion-rand mark in transaction values, with an average of 70 million transactions being processed every month,” says Absa's head of retail markets, Arrie Rautenbach.
Of the 70 million online transactions the bank processes every month, Absa has determined the most popular as being payments, account statements, notice of payments and inter-account transfers.
More SA users
Rautenbach says “a whole new group” of South African online users is expected to emerge in the near future. “Developments, such as the impact of new sources of international undersea connectivity, increased competition in the Internet service providers industry, resulting in lower data prices and the influx of affordable netbook and notebook computers [will be the cause of the new group of users].”
He says it is, therefore, not surprising to see a sharp rise in demand and the market's appetite for new online functionalities. “Since one of the most useful Internet applications is online banking, we are ramping up investment in our online channel to cater for the rapidly increasing volumes of traffic.”
The bank often sees up to 9 000 users online at any given time during peak times, particularly during month-end periods, Rautenbach concludes.
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