FNB has been on a journey of partnering with customers to provide innovative, contextual, and helpful solutions that are delivered through its distribution channels. One of the bank’s key objectives has been to invest in local market presence to be closer to customers, to understand their context and to unlock value for them. As part of this, FNB is further expanding its extensive footprint in local markets by deploying over 300 community bankers in the next few months. This investment follows the bank’s commitment in 2021 to build approximately 50 additional branches in local communities.
Currently, FNB customers have access to an extensive footprint that includes:
- 611 branches
- Over 5000 ATMs and cash centres
- 145 000 merchants with 190 000 Speedpoints
- More than 8000 Cash@Till® third-party retail outlets for cash withdraws while shopping
Lee-Anne van Zyl, CEO of FNB Points of Presence, says “the deployment of community bankers is consistent with our efforts to enable better access to our services and aligns with our commitment to support the growth and development of local communities. While our community bankers will initially focus on providing consumers access to transactional accounts, we believe that with time they will be able to expand the help they provide to include assistance with solutions such as funeral cover and savings products, as well as data and voice services from FNB Connect. This also supports our integrated advice journey and our vision of being able to provide our customers with contextual solutions.”
“In addition, we are piloting a similar approach for business customers, and we intend to have business community bankers that can assist community-based SMEs with some of their financial requirements. We’re testing our approach in KwaZulu-Natal right now, and we aim to have a clearer understanding of the requirements in the coming months. While we have always had a strong presence in communities across the country, we believe there is much more we can do to help residents and small businesses in those communities,” van Zyl explains.
In its branches across the country, FNB will also offer nearly 150 youth an opportunity to gain work experience as part of its internal FirstJob initiative. The youth will assist customers with onboarding on digital interfaces such as the FNB App or Online Banking and help customers use convenient and safe features like Secure Chat to communicate with FNB’s client service teams. This is part of the bank’s long-term strategy to encourage customers to use digital interfaces for basic services with human assistance or support when required.
With respect to the ongoing revamp of branches, Lee-Anne van Zyl remarks that they continue remodelling their branches in size and design. “Our community branches currently average between 135 and 150 square metres in size, with cutting-edge technology and a customer experience that combines self-service and in-person interactions.”
“All of these efforts demonstrate our commitment to being accessible to customers whenever and wherever they need us. More importantly, a strong local presence enables us to better understand our customers’ needs and tailor our products and services to those needs. This is especially true in the context of financial inclusion. In an era where niche banks only prioritise access to digitised solutions, we maintain a strong presence in local markets while also enabling access to our market-leading digital services for customers,” van Zyl concludes.
