FNB’s digital financial planning tool has crossed 5-million users, the FirstRand retail banking unit said on Tuesday, underscoring demand for better money habits from consumers and small business owners.
Over the years, banking websites and mobile apps have moved from being tools for making and receiving simple electronic funds transfers (EFTs) to being marketplaces where customers can access a range of products and services. Banking apps, for example, are one of the main ways in which people top up airtime for mobile devices and buy electricity.
Beyond transfers and digital goods, banks have increasingly been stacking financial planning tools onto their platforms. Customers can now make and track their budgets, apply for home and car loans, and get suggestions on how to save and invest their money.
FNB calls this suite “nav»”. The bank said its nav» Money tool had now reached 5-million users since its launch nine years ago.
According to the bank, 1-million of these users have joined in the past 12 months, “underscoring the growing demand for FNB’s innovative digital financial solutions”.
Of the FNB customers using nav» Money, more than 3-million are customers who earn up to R750,000 a year. It said 1.1-million smart budgets had been set up through the tool to assist with managing finances.
FNB’s CEO for nav», Jolandé Duvenage, told Business Day her team started off by creating a way for people to manage their home and vehicle finances on the banking app, as a way to get people interested in the nav» concept.
“In any innovation journey, the initial challenge is just to get a few runs on the board, so that people can take you seriously. That was the name of our game. So we decided to start with home and car. In SA, people typically spend about 50% of their monthly income on transport and on the home. As you go up the [income] tiers, it remains more or less the same.
“We knew that this was such a big expense for people.”
Duvenage is one of the original team members that helped to launch FNB’s now popular eBucks rewards programme. She was appointed CEO of eBucks in 2010 and ran the unit until former FNB boss Jacques Celliers tasked her with forming and growing the digital financial planning unit.
“And then we realised that it’s important that when we [create] these solutions, we want customers to be better off after they’ve engaged with us. You should feel like you’ve had a better home buying and selling experience, a better car buying and maintenance experience,” she said.
“We also realised that we had to work with South Africans on a very basic level.”
“Before you even think about having multimillion-rand investments, let’s start with basics. If you are earning R5,000, how do we help you living within your means and how do we show you how you can budget [smartly]? We send notifications during the course of the month to help manage spend so that even if you just have that little bit left in the month, it can be put towards paying off debt or adding to savings.”
Since its launch in 2016, nav» has grown into an ecosystem with tools across money, car, home, Earth, energy, marketplace, care and the newly launched graduate offering.
“Each of these buckets are designed to provide customers with information, coaching, much-needed access to financing, and other valuable tools they need as they progress through different life stages,” said FNB.
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