09 May 2013

In its most recent survey of web users, Alexa (www.alexa.com) noted that FNB was the only banking website in the top 10 sites in Africa and was the most popular banking website on the continent.

Typically, national or regional news-based websites dominate the top 10. As a specialised banking site primarily aimed at the bank's customers, FNB’s achievement is remarkable. Says FNB Online CEO Lee-Anne van Zyl; "We have over 2.8 million unique visitors to our website each month. This indicates that a very large number of non-FNB customers visit our site for information. We have 1.3m online banking customers."

"We are planning an exciting re-launch of our site in July, with an increased focus on a much richer information offering for both visitors and for our customers. Post login, FNB customers will find detailed financial information and much wider transactional ability," says van Zyl.

FNB is driving towards a level of online functionality that will make it possible for customers to bypass the need for branch interaction. In future, the bank plans to have customers who purely interact with the bank via digital channels.

Already, FNB offers customers the ability to change their username and password and change ATM limits, all online. Many of these were branch-based functions. Customers have the ability to open new accounts and switch their accounts from other banks online.

Says van Zyl: "We carefully balance online user friendliness with security. FNB adopts a multi-layered approach to security and further offers its customers free anti-phishing and anti-malware software. We operate a range of behind-the-scenes monitoring software to create automatic alerts and these are actioned by our Online security team.

"In future, digital banking will become increasingly textured with intuitive ease of operation. Online banking customers have expectations that continually evolve. Winning this award indicates we are on the right path and we will continue to evolve FNB Online Banking," adds van Zyl.