One of the most innovative initiatives within the financial sector over the last 18 months, according to the publication entitled `Financial Innovation Around the World`, which is published by the Council on Financial Competition, has been the inContact service that was launched by First National Bank (FNB) in December 2001.
InContact is a free messaging service that communicates financial transactions as they occur to the account holder using e-mail and/or SMS via a cellphone as the communication vehicle. The communications deliver real-time confirmation of deposits, transfers, withdrawals and purchases on all the individual`s FNB accounts and, at the choice of the user, these notifications can be transmitted 24 hours per day, as they occur or during regular office hours (transactions occurring out of office hours will be stored and sent the following day).
The SMS service, the option chosen by over 95% of the account holders requesting this facility, is provided in partnership with Leaf Wireless.
Leaf Wireless and FNB jointly developed a text-based IP protocol to facilitate seamless integration and communication between the bank`s mainframe and the mobile handset base. The advantage of this proprietary protocol is the flexibility it provides, for example FNB can specify a transaction threshold amount, and only transactions above that value will create an SMS message. Leaf Wireless played a major role in putting together the technical specification and FNB completed its developments based on this definition.
"We were looking for effective and innovative ways to meet our customers` requirements for information on their finance, as well as a tool that would provide us with a capability to minimise fraud," commented Galia Belling, CEO of Core Banking Solutions at FNB. "The concept of inContact, the first real-time, mobile messaging application in SA from one of the `Big Four`, met these criteria and also provided us with a new risk and financial management capability.
"We originally hoped that 10% of our customers would utilise the inContact service within five years but we underestimated the positive reaction of our clients, and are confident this target will be achieved well ahead of schedule," continued Belling.
"Currently, some 2 million messages per month are being sent to our customers by inContact," added Belling. "We are planning to enhance this service to cater for some of our other new initiatives over the coming months."
"It is our intention to strategically work with key global partners," contributed Brandon Leigh, CEO of Leaf Wireless. "We see our relationship with FNB as fulfilling a key role in the banking sector and look forward to working with them on other initiatives that are currently under discussion."
"To the best of our knowledge, this application, which serves over 200 000 customers, was one of the first of its kind," concluded Leigh.
Following the undoubted success of this initiative, the program is now being rolled out in Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland.
For further information, please contact Craig Bregman, cell 083 647 7683; telephone (011) 326 1844; fax (011) 326 1853; e-mail craigb@leafwireless.com
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