The battle of the banks has hit the cellphone airwaves in earnest with two of the four major commercial banks this week claiming to be the market leaders in the number of users, turnover or services offered.
Absa says it has doubled its active cellphone users to 13 000 between April 2002 and March 2003. First National Bank (FNB) claims it has more than 21 600 active users and Standard Bank has 13 500.
Absa says that in March this year, the value of transactions processed through its cellphone service totalled R24 million, while FNB`s came to R2.6 million. Standard Bank does not track the value of its transactions, but says it processed 30 000 transactions through its cellphone service in March.
The disparity between the Absa and FNB numbers relates to their client base. Carl Louw, Absa`s manager of mobile services e-channels, says the bank has a large number of small and medium-sized business users, including farmers.
"By definition, the value of their transactions is inclined to be larger than ordinary individuals and this may skew our numbers somewhat," he says.
Roland le Sueur, FNB`s head of Internet banking, says some individuals do use the bank`s cellphone services on behalf of a company, but it is not seen as a major service.
"We view cellphone banking as a support service for our other channels rather than a standalone solution," he says.
Herman Singh, Standard Bank director of direct channels, says the bank sees cellphone banking as part of an overall solution. "We see a client starting the day using one type of electronic method and then ending the day using another - whichever is the most convenient."
Singh adds that the definition of an active cellphone banking user is open to debate. "Just because someone may have downloaded the software doesn`t mean that he is an active user. We have noticed that about one-third of our base is active during a month and so one must look at how many active users there are over a three- to four-month period."
FNB and Standard Bank support cellphone applications on WAP and WIG, while Absa only supports the latter.
"When we started our cellphone service in 2000, there were security issues surrounding WAP and so we decided to focus on one type," Louw says.
All, the banks, including Nedcor, say they are looking at enhancing their services as they find out what their clients require.
Singh says Standard Bank`s service facilitates person-to-person funds transfer, while Nedcor says it is slowly rolling out a credit card payment system with Iveri.
"We don`t see person-to-person funds transfer quite taking off yet as people don`t seem to trust it just yet," Louw says.
The battle between the banks for the active cellphone user market is huge - according to Absa there are 14.1 million cellphone subscribers in this country, making it the one area where the banks can expand their offerings and build revenue streams.
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