First National Bank (FNB) has appointed two senior executives to increase its capacity and take advantage of the growing cellphone banking market.
Following the departure of CEO of the bank's mCommerce division, Len Pienaar, the bank has appointed Yolande van Wyk as CEO of Smart Services and Ravesh Ramlakan as CEO of Cellphone Banking Services.
Pienaar, who has headed mCommerce for five years, will hand over to Van Wyk and Ramlakan at the end of January 2010.
In 2009, FNB reported that cellphone banking customers had performed more than 56 million transactions, to the value of over R7.2 billion, in the last 12 months, indicating that the cellphone had come of age as a transactional channel.
FNB says it currently has over a million active cellphone banking customers. Following the success of the service locally, it was rolled out to its operations in Zambia, in 2009, and now offers one or more cellphone banking services in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.
“The new management team will build on the excellent work done by our outgoing CEO of mCommerce, Len Pienaar, who has taken our cellphone banking levels to record heights. The key challenge, which we are confident our new CEOs will overcome, is to maintain our excellent service levels, while keeping our existing track with a heady pace of growth,” says Lin'e Wiid, CEO of FNB Smart Solutions.
Doubling capacity
In August, the bank introduced eBucks on cellphone banking - allowing customers to buy prepaid airtime from Telkom, Globel and Vodacom, SMS and data bundles, MXit Moola and prepaid electricity.
Most recently, it also introduced Send Money - an instant solution for FNB customers to transfer money to anyone with a South African cellphone number.
'We are proud of the fact that in 2005 we launched cellphone banking in SA and we are equally proud that after five years of launching cellphone banking, we are doubling our management capacity in this area with the appointments,” says Wiid.
Van Wyk, who was previously head of expansion in the mCommerce business unit falling under FNB Smart Solutions, will be responsible for all eMoney initiatives, the bank's online mobile payment gateway called Cell Pay Point and Send Money, which allows FNB customers to send money to anyone with a South African cellphone.
Ramlakan, who was previously chief commercial officer responsible for the business areas within mCommerce, will be responsible for all cellphone banking, transact and messaging for SA and the African subsidiaries.
Pienaar will join international messaging company Clickatell, in Cape Town.
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