Absa`s cellular banking takes off

By Iain Scott, ITWeb group consulting editor

Johannesburg, 01 Jun 2006

Absa`s cellphone banking customer base has grown 140% to 180 000 people since the bank launched free cellphone banking in October.

A bank spokesman says the bank now sees about 15 000 new registrations per month and users performed about 200 000 financial transactions worth R210 million in April.

According to Christo Vrey, digital channels general manager, the most popular financial transactions are prepaid top-ups for cellphone airtime, inter-account transfers and payments.

"What this tells us is that cellphone banking is being used as a convenient cousin to Internet banking," he says.

"When people don`t have access to electricity or are just not close to an Internet connection, and would rather not use a public facility such as an Internet caf'e because of the risks, they are turning to cellphone banking."

The figures are broadly in line with other players in the market. Len Pienaar, CEO of Mobile & Transact Solutions at First National Bank (FNB), disclosed recently that FNB was registering about 20 000 people a month.

Mobile Bank Wizzit also indicated it had about 200 000 customers.

Pienaar told a recent banking conference that cellphone banking customers of all banks in SA were not only registering for the services, but were actively using them.

"The growth rates seem to have been accelerating in the last few months, with innovative marketing campaigns from all the banks driving adoption and usage," he said.

Vrey says Absa`s cellphone banking growth has also been helped by its Internet-based cellphone banking, launched in March as an alternative to SMS-based cellphone banking.

"Internet-based cellphone banking is particularly easy for those who are used to Internet banking because the layout is very similar to Internet banking," he adds.

Absa says its customers span all age groups.