An eventful week on Absa`s e-business calendar ends today, with news of executive Santie Botha resigning on Thursday, a day after the group presented its e-business gains and lessons to analysts and the media. Officials today explained the bank`s future plans for its electronic channels.
Alfie Naidoo, Absa managing executive, e-channels, says the five electronic avenues through which Absa serves the market, namely the Internet, cellphones, landline telephones, Absa`s call centre and its ATMs, will all be fleshed out in terms of better functionality in the future.
In terms of Internet banking, Naidoo says Absa is looking into providing financial needs analysis and is in talks with other service providers, including those in financial services and other areas such as the cell networks, to strengthen its offering.
"If you look at the site today, it has a public portion (the .co.za landing page) and a private component, which is reached once you log on.
"In addition to that, we will look at introducing functionality that requires an additional level of authentication." Although he will not be drawn on what such functionality would entail or when it can be expected, Naidoo offers the academic example of changing withdrawal limits.
Hello hello!
Having conducted a pilot project in VoiceXML with Property24, Absa is well positioned to implement the technology in its early stages in its own contact centre. "We`re interested in the VoiceGenie application, having already had success with it to some degree," Naidoo says. "Specifically, voice recognition interests us. It would be good if you could speak 'homeloans` instead of typing '1` or '2` into a touch-tone phone."
VoiceXML enables text-to-speech, voice-recognition and authentication applications on the Web, meaning you could interact with Absa`s functional backend in future from any phone. Last month, visiting VP of VoiceGenie, Bruce Eidsvik, told ITWeb that 95% of new voice-enabled applications use VoiceXML worldwide.
"The nice thing about VoiceXML is that you can backend it on the call centre or the Web site," says Naidoo. "We will start with routing calls and only later go on to text-to-speech and more."
In terms of cellular, Absa offers top-ups, wireless Internet gateway browsing of statements and payment. It is talking to the service providers, who are offering free value-added services to increase their own traffic. Some of these services interest Absa too.
As far as ATMs go, Naidoo says a combination of technologies may serve to address issues like vandalism and theft. "In future, one might put the cameras at high-profile ATMs to use by sending images of vandalism to roving technicians` mobiles."
In general, Naidoo says the ATM monitor presents a "prime piece of real estate", which one could put to use in non-traditional ways, such as marketing, without disrupting the customer experience. More intelligence in ATMs would also be an exciting direction to explore, such as customer identity-based offerings.
The numbers
Absa claims 389 000 Internet banking customers (or 38% of market share), 317 000 telephone banking customers and 13 000 cellphone banking customers.
In the year to end February 2003, Internet banking transaction values stood at R121 billion, telephone banking at R5 billion and cellphone banking at R184 million.
The group has 3 300 ATMs, "the largest footprint in SA" and "one of the country`s largest branch networks" (623).
Absa says it has 60% of the debit card market, based on transaction volumes. More than six million Absa debit cards are actively in use.
Through joint ventures with black economic empowerment groups, Absa`s Allpay system provides a cash service to pensioners and the disabled, and uses multimedia applications linked to a smart card-based fingerprint system, to pay social grants.
In addition, the bank offers affordable Internet access to the market (R39 per month for customers; R65 per month for non-customers). With over 90 000 subscribers, Absa is a major force in Internet service provision.
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