After a cautious beginning a few years ago, Cellphone Banking is starting to deliver on its promise of putting ’your bank in your pocket’, and allowing you to transact anywhere you go.<\/p>\n
Absa Bank this week celebrates reaching half a million Cellphone Banking customers.<\/p>\n
Absa’s managing executive for digital channels, Christo Vrey, says that with 38m cellular subscribers nationwide, there is a great opportunity for the mobile channel to become the primary banking interface for many South Africans.<\/p>\n
"People are generally becoming comfortable with the idea of using one’s cellphone to do their banking; and they are realising the convenience of the service," he notes.<\/p>\n
The rapid adoption of SMS notification services for transactions and balance enquiries has helped to familiarise people with the concept of cellphones as a financial services tool, boosting full-service Cellphone Banking registrations, he adds.<\/p>\n
Absa currently processes over R7bn in annual transaction values through the mobile channel, comprising mostly account payments and prepaid airtime top-ups. By the end of 2008, Vrey expects to have 800 000 Cellphone Banking customers.<\/p>\n
Absa Cellphone Banking allows users to buy prepaid airtime, make account payments and inter-account transfers, view account balances and statements, request statements by fax or email, and send proof-of-payment notices to beneficiaries through various mediums.<\/p>\n
The bank offers two versions of Cellphone Banking: an SMS-based service that is available on all cellphones, and a WAP-based mobile Internet version, available on higher-end cellphone handsets.<\/p>\n