Standard Bank`s online strategy is beginning to pay dividends as the concept gains in popularity. More than SA`s entire GDP is transacted through the online bank every year.
The bank says transaction volumes in its online banking services have grown more than 80% annually, with more than six million transactions carried out a year.
Herman Singh, director of online banking services, says this is more than a quarter of the 25 million transactions done via the bank`s automated teller machine (ATM) network.
Between 800 000 and 900 000 people are now using the services every month. The month-on-month growth is between 4% and 5%.
Singh says the value of online transactions has grown to between R4 billion and R5 billion per month for personal business, while business services see more than R200 billion per month.
"This means that every four months, the equivalent of SA`s gross domestic product is transacted through our Internet business facilities," he says.
Singh says Standard Bank has embarked on a strategy of making its Internet offering simpler and safer to use for a variety of banking functions including payments, deposits and transferring of money.
"In fact, we aim to make our online banking services the equivalent of an ATM, except one won`t be able to withdraw cash," he says.
The bank`s Web site is also aimed at people who may be less technology-oriented than the early adopters who embraced the services with some glee.
"We have found that we have to lead people through the site by giving them options, but not too many. Furthermore, we have changed the font sizes in order to make the site a lot more legible than it was in the past," Singh says.
Research commissioned by Standard Bank has found that the more functionality a site has, the less people are inclined to use its various features. Rather, they want a few options that lead them to the desired transaction. Security is also a big issue with people who are less tech-savvy.
"Another factor influencing our online strategy is that bandwidth is a bit of a problem. Because it is quite slow in this country, people spend more time making that telephone call to the site, and the cost of a landline call is proportionately higher in this country than in many others," he says.
Standard Bank`s answer has been to make the pages simple, so they load faster, and people can reduce the time spent on the call.
"We have done away with the fancy graphics and tried to minimise anything that will cause the loading of the pages to slow down," he says.
More than 200 000 statements are e-mailed by Standard Bank every month to clients. The statements are encrypted and each client has a password to open the document. The service is provided free of charge.
"This country loves technology and we have seen a huge demand by clients for services that will make their lives easier," Singh says.
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