FNB launches smartphone application

First National Bank (FNB) on 20 July 2011 officially launched the FNB smartphone app – a banking app for smartphones and tablet devices.

At launch it was available for Android, iOS and BlackBerry touch screen devices, with an Ovi version for Nokia expected to become available soon, FNB said. The app is designed to offered FNB customers the whole spectrum of banking activities that they might wish to do in-branch or on-line.

“We were so excited about the app that we were going to go ahead with the launch while it was still only available on Android,” said FNB CEO Michael Jordaan. “We were surprised when the iOS version went live in the app store the day before the launch and shortly thereafter the BlackBerry version came online as well.”

The FNB App (listed simply as FNB in the Android Store) allows you to view FNB related information, view account lists and balances, detailed balances, and detailed transaction history – including transaction search. It also includes the ability to make payments and transfers between accounts.

Other features include the ability to make free calls to FNB contact centres via FNB Connect, as well as finding nearby FNB branches and ATMs based on the user’s GPS location.

Users should ideally be an FNB online banking subscriber to make full use of the application, but non-subscribers could benefit from the branch and ATM locator as well as the built-in Forex Rate Indicator.

FNB said that they are also busy developing features such as support for Near Field Communications (NFC)-based payments and bump payments, e-wallet and eBucks transactions, inContact, and share trading.

Another feature being developed, according to FNB, is augmented reality support. One of the possibilities will be virtual tours of FNB branches via the app, allowing customers to know exactly where they need to go when in an FNB branch before they even get there.

The FNB app only supports touch screen devices at the moment, but support for QWERTY keypad devices without touch displays such as BlackBerry and Nokia are planned.