We all know that FNB is an amazingly forward thinking bank that have been innovating and creating useful and exciting products, both banking and insurance for some time now. If you recall in our previous article we discussed exactly how they have transformed their building into a 5 Star Green machine that uses solar heaters to heat water, photo voltaics to generate electricity, has passive cooling systems and harvests rainwater to keep the gardens green. Quite and achievement for a building!
Most recently though, they have done some really amazing things in the personal banking space:
You can now open an FNB account using the cellphone App and taking a selfie. You need nothing else – you don’t need to visit a branch and you can do this anywhere you have a data connection. You select to open a new account on the App and then you verify that you are who you say you are, by taking a selfie! The FNB App then verifies your picture at the Department of Home Affairs and apparently this is all the FICA information that FNB now needs to process your information. Once you have an FNB account you can use all of FNB’s products and services – financial and insurance related.
The second and most useful on a daily basis would be newly installed TouchPoint ATM’s – which basically uses your fingerprints to verify you as a customer and allows you to perform transactions such as transfers, pay accounts and withdraw cash. One again the fingerprint accesses the Department of Home Affairs database and verifies that you are a real customer. This means you no longer need to have a chip and pin card with you. There are currently only 50 of the TouchPoint ATM’s in use across the country but more can be expected. Now naturally this could be very useful, but it also carries a few security related risks. We won’t go into details but you can think about the implications for yourself. It would be very interesting to learn how FNB has overcome the technical hacks that both iPhones and a plethora of Android phone manufacturers have had to.
However – well done FNB on your fearless quest to be more user focused and more customer first aligned.
