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First National Bank
eWallet becomes your financial hub
South Africa's FNB puts innovation at the heart of its culture. The bank’s innovative eWallet, hosted on your phone, acts as a hub for many other creative solutions to making money flow easier and faster.
The Acacia tree in the brand logo represents a bank with roots that run deep in South African society. FNB is the oldest bank in South Africa, originally the Eastern Province Bank founded in 1838, and today, a division of FirstRand Bank Limited.
“FNB lives and breathes innovation” says CEO Michael Jordaan. “Every employee can be an innovator and can change the way we work” based on what he calls bottom-up strategies, delivered by a bottom-up organisation hierarchy.
These innovations include FNB Africa’s “Bank in a bag” making joining a very tangible experience, online personal banking, a rewards program, digital apps and links to other retail loyalty programs. At the heart of these initiatives is a mobile “eWallet” from which customers can make cardless payments and cash withdrawals using SMS confirmations, Pay2Cell, and Facebook Vouchers.
The eWallet service allows customers to send money to anyone in South Africa with a valid mobile phone number. Funds can be transferred instantly, and the recipient receives a text message indicating that funds have been sent to their mobile phone.
The recipient is then able to withdraw cash at FNB ATMs, buy pre-paid airtime or electricity, send money to another phone, purchase and/or get cash at selected retailers, as well as make once-off payments.
To encourage and sustain this innovation drive, FNB has an annual innovations award, encouraging staff to creatively deliver solutions aligned to the company’s strategy, and contribute towards growth targets. Over 1000 initiatives contend for the award each year.
“It’s incredible to be part of an organisation where its people continuously come up with innovative ideas that are very often implemented. As a leader I encourage people to think out of the box and come up with an innovative set of ideas or solutions that will ultimately benefit our customers, so that our business evolves with new mindsets and visions of the future,” says Jordaan.