JOHANNESBURG - First National Bank (FNB) has once again been awarded The Most Innovative African Bank at the 2017 African FinTech Awards for the second year in a row.
The African FinTech Awards recognises innovative and disruptive FinTech companies that have excelled in their sphere of business.
The panel of judges for this year’s occasion consisted of seasoned investors, academics, innovation heads of top banks and entrepreneurs with an extensive track record in finance and/or technology.
Jacques Celliers, FNB CEO said, “We are humbled to be awarded The Most Innovative African Bank for the second year in a row. This accolade demonstrates our consistency in creating solutions that prioritise exponential helpfulness to address the needs of our individual and business customers. For us, innovation is a journey that is rooted in customer-centricity and all our solutions are a reflection of our commitment to exceptionally high standards. Everything we do in our business is designed to deliver a world-class customers experience to our millions of customers.”
The bank is successfully building its insurance business and digitising the process of acquiring insurance while creating an intuitive investment offering that caters for a range of individual and business needs.
“Networked market places have seen exponential growth by connecting sellers and buyers, hosts and visitors, drivers and passengers. FNB’s nav» platform brings this revolution to banking and is revolutionizing the way we do business at FNB. Our aim is to disrupt rather than be disrupted,” says Peter Alkema, FNB Business CIO.
In 2015, FNB became the first bank in Africa to offer an integrated telco service, FNB Connect, which offers an FNB-branded SIM. Last year, FNB upped the ante by becoming the first bank in Africa to launch its own branded smartphones. Recently, FNB Connect revealed that it had over 500 000 active SIMs and has sold over 75 000 FNB-branded ConeXis smartphones.
“Our different solutions are brought together by our banking App, which has increasingly become the gateway and one-stop-shop for all our banking services. Our customers have one app to manage all their banking needs from a smartphone. What makes the FNB Banking App unique is the seamless integration of additional value added services to the traditional banking functions. We are very excited about our digital journey and remain committed to providing helpful solutions to our individual and business customers,” Alkema concluded.