Banking14.10.2014

FNB Banking App hits 1 million devices

FNB has announced that its Banking App is now active on over 1 million smart devices.

The FNB app was first-to-market when it launched in July 2011, when the financial group opened up smartphone sales to its customers.

According to Giuseppe Virgillito from FNB Digital Banking, the milestone shows how eager South Africans are to bank digitally.

“The App has grown phenomenally fast in the last three years to reach 1 million active devices. The biggest growth spurt was during the past year growing at 65% from October last year till this year,” Virgillito said.

In the group’s financial results in September, Virgillito noted that the group had increased its app-linked devices to 875,000 at the end of June 2014 – meaning over 125,000 devices were linked in the past 3 months.

Data from FNB shows that, on average, the Banking App customer base logs into the App 15 times per month, with a significant portion of customers logging in over 40 times a month.

The most popular transactions on the app are payments, followed by account transfers, and buying prepaid products.

The app’s success has been at the forefront of FNB’s push to get customers to transact less with cash and adopt a digital-first mindset.

“Users of the App have reduced their reliance on branches, ATMs, and call centres to almost zero transactions per month,” Virgillito said.

“With continuous development and growth of this channel, we will be able to offer more value, convenience, and cost savings to our customers, building on our digital ecosystem and reducing the dependency on cash and physical banking infrastructure.”

In September, FNB reported a 15% rise in electronic volumes for the year ended June 2014, including a 30% increase in mobile transactions (excluding prepaid).

The group also noted that it had sold around 250,000 smart devices through its online store.