{"id":31740,"date":"2013-02-14T11:32:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T09:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=31740"},"modified":"2013-02-14T14:36:07","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T12:36:07","slug":"standard-bank-talks-up-growth-via-mobile-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/31740\/standard-bank-talks-up-growth-via-mobile-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard Bank talks up growth via mobile platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standard Bank<\/a> says it is\u00a0currently opening up as many 7,000 new accounts a day via SMS technology.<\/p>\n

The bank and software company, SAP<\/a> announced on Thursday (14 February), that they have collaborated to bring mobile banking to half a million previously unbanked customers in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Standard Bank’s mobile AccessAccount, which is based on a SAP mobile platform, is targetted at low-income individuals.<\/p>\n

Over 22 million people in South Africa earn under R3,000 a month, SAP said; of that number 66% do not have bank accounts.<\/p>\n

The AccessAccount has been set up in such a way that it’s easy for users in underserved areas – such as townships and rural areas – to create and set up a bank account from their mobile devices.<\/p>\n

The platform supports multiple devices, has a strong security management component and allows users to perform transactions such as person-to-person transfers and purchasing of electricity and airtime through their mobile phones at any time.<\/p>\n

Customers can also perform transactions such as cash-in, cash-out and money transfers at Standard Bank AccessPoints, which operate through partnerships with informal traders already running businesses in their communities.<\/p>\n

According to SAP, since the platform’s inception in March 2012, the model has attracted more than 550,000 new customers to the product.<\/p>\n

“We have built an entirely new IT system and platform that spans across all the bank’s offerings in our ‘Inclusive Banking’ business,” said Peter Wharton Hood<\/a>, deputy chief executive, Standard Bank Group.<\/p>\n

“Mobile origination is not only far more accessible for customers, it is also 80% cheaper,” he said.<\/p>\n

Hood noted further that the app was helping the bank grow its cutomer base at a rate which exceeded their expectations.<\/p>\n

“We are currently opening up to 7,000 new accounts a day via SMS technology, in less than six minutes per transaction,” Hood said.<\/p>\n

More on banking apps<\/h3>\n

Absa treading the digital path<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Nedbank My Financial Life now live<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Standard Bank skips along beaten digital path<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAppy\u201d birthday, FNB<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

FNB named most innovative bank in the world<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standard Bank says it is currently opening up as many 7,000 new accounts a day via SMS technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,773,1073,499],"class_list":["post-31740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-mobile-banking","tag-sap","tag-standard-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31740"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31776,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31740\/revisions\/31776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}