FNB increases app functions to expand on its financial services

Mega bank FNB has gone the platform-building route by complementing its financial services with third party products and services as it expands the nav» functionality on its app.

The bank, which has been the leader in technology innovations in the sector through its loyalty rewards system eBucks, expanded its financial services offering to include health and wellness.

Its app does not only allows customers to set and track their savings, health and fitness goals for free, but also to order prescription medicine.

The bank said that the app would notify customers when the medicine would be ready to be picked up from the nearest Dis-Chem.

FNB head of retail Raj Makanjee said yesterday that the more FNB customers used the platform, the more other service providers will also want to be part of it.

Makanjee said the new functionality was a continuation of the nav» journey that started in 2016 when FNB introduced nav»Home, followed by nav»Car and more recently, nav»Money.

Global companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon have used the platform model to grow exponentially and grab significant market share from established firms – the platform is everything that is on an app.

In South Africa, traditional banks are also under increasingly competitive pressure from new, lower cost online banks, and from the blurring of traditional product ranges of financial services groups, such as life companies increasingly offering banking and other services, apart from just life insurance.

Makanjee said that FNB had to date helped put more than 10000 families in homes through nav»Home; nav»Car has 300000 vehicles loaded, while more than 350000 customers use nav»Money for money management.

He said FNB dealt with 100 million digital interactions a month on its platforms, some 40 percent of which was on its app.

He said only 10 percent of South Africans earn more than R300 000 a year, which was “a scary statistic” and a low figure compared with other countries in the world.

“We understand our clients have challenges in their lives, and we are trying through this platform to help them make smart choices, and to help them save money and make better life decisions,” said Makanjee.

The enhancing functionality on nav»Money would enable customers to set and track savings goals.

It would also calculate how much a customer needed to save for a goal, recommend a personalised savings solution, and include the ability to track progress.

The bank’s goal-based solution offered customers the option of 10 main Savings Goals categories, including education, emergencies, travel, save to start a business as well as health and wellness – with more than 50 different sub-categories. Customers can even create and name their own goal.

“Travel aspirations, flight bookings, permanent discounts and monthly deals all could be realised through the expended platform,” Makanjee said.