FNB CEO Harry Kellan.
First National Bank’s (FNB’s) digitally-active customer base grew to 7.78 million, from 7.35 million in 2024.
This is based on the bank’s financial results for the year ended 30 June, with its customers increasingly adopting digital payment methods over the years.
FNB’s digital channels include mobile banking (USSD), online banking and the FNB app.
Commenting on the growth, FNB CEO Harry Kellan said in relation to the overall customer base, the rate of digitally-active customers is “quite high”, pointing out that the bulk of them are in South Africa.
“When you look at our South African retail customers, there are 10 million, including in broader Africa, so [if there are] 7.8 [million], the penetration is good. For digital channels, we only record the FNB app, cellphone banking (USSD) and online banking.
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“We continually try and educate, try and incentivise eBucks, etc to get people to adopt digital more because the more they adopt, the better it is for them, from a customer experience and instances of fraud. For example, reporting a fraud incident has been simplified to report via the app instead of trying to reach the call centre or dropping an e-mail.
“If your credentials are compromised that way, time matters. In such instances, we always want to get customers more into digital…we always want more but I don’t think the digital customers that we have is bad penetration, on a relative basis.
“For us, we invest more into technology to facilitate better baking experiences for the customers.”
Big-four bank FNB now counts 10 million active customers under its stable, with the active customer base (excluding eWallets) and total platform users growing 2% year-on-year.
According to the financial results, bank’s digital channels delivered volume growth in line with its strategy to drive customer take-up of digital interfaces and migration to the FNB app (app volumes up 14%).
In June, the banking app active transacting base achieved 6.32 million customers (up 9%), with a new monthly record of 157 million logins. Monthly app logins in June were 22% higher than in June 2024.
In terms of digital login, these totalled 2.15 billion, with online and mobile banking logins of 238 million and 183 million, respectively. The app contributed 1.7 billion logins.
Total transactional volumes through digital interfaces included 156 million for online banking, 713 million (+14%) for the banking app and 20 million for mobile banking.
In terms of itsmobile virtual network operator (MVNO) offering FNB Connect, it produced volumes worth R22 billion with three million customers using these services, in the year under review.
Total retail revenue from these services grew 15% to more than R2.9 billion, show the results.
The bank’s FNB Connect offering launched in 2015, allowing FNB customers to choose from a range of contract and prepaid packages, smartphones and devices.
FNB Connect is a three-pillar business made up of the MVNO, device and service provider business. Last year, the business went live with its eSIM solution for its retail and commercial customers.
FNB Connect’s device proposition has expanded beyond smartphones, smart devices and home connectivity, to solar solutions for the home and business, as well as water harvesting and backup solutions.
