In the digital age, there’s almost no reason for you to walk into a bank again.
By Craig Falck for Africa Report
Photograph: © Yuri Arcurs | Dreamstime.com
Online banking has developed at an exponential rate. There are new advancements almost every week and new ways of doing regular banking through the internet. Developments have slowed down quite a bit in the last while, but that doesn’t mean the banks haven’t stopped introducing new ones altogether. Here are three of our favourites.
SMS banking is the newest advancement in digital/online banking. It’s run via push/pull messages (similar to recharging data bundles on your phone), where you select options to complete various transactions. It’s a brand-new technology, so there’s still a lot of scepticism around it. But given how quickly people have changed their attitudes towards online banking, it’s safe to say that this banking technique is going to become very popular in the near future, especially since it gives any and everyone with a bank account the power of banking in their hands, even if they don’t have the latest smartphone.
PayPal has become synonymous with online buying and selling, allowing people to trade in virtual currency that they have bought using their credit cards. FNB is currently the only bank in South Africa that services PayPal, and you can now be paid or pay out money via the software if you’ve linked your FNB credit card to your PayPal account. This allows you to do online trading with people overseas without the risk of credit card fraud, and likewise you are able to receive money from overseas and withdraw it via your FNB branch. And don’t forget about the FNB app – now you don’t even need to go onto the website to bank. You can just open the app, log in and presto – immediate banking!
SMS notifications used to be a preferential setting that you could choose to have or not have – and you used to be charged for it. As a result of the increasing cases of online fraud where people are convinced to pass out their banking details via email (their profile number, pin number and password); free SMS notification has become an industry norm. You will receive an SMS when you (or someone else) log into your account. That way, if you’re not logged into your account you can quickly phone your bank and tell them that someone is illegally using your account and they can sort the matter out. You also receive an SMS notification from some banks when you close the session, and you get uniquely coded reference numbers. This way, the banks are giving you the added benefit of free SMS notification and protecting their clients and themselves at the same time.
As easy as online banking is to do, banks are constantly rolling out new technologies and advancements to make banking simpler and much more accessible. These days, even the most basic cellular phone is good enough to get your banking done! So much for standing in a bank anymore…
