Employees recognized for pioneering platform innovations

The employees of FNB, WesBank, DirectAxis, RMB Private Bank and MotoVantage have once again been recognised for creating platform innovations as part of the fist cycle of the Innovators programme. The longstanding Innovators programme showcases and celebrates platform innovations by employees in the respective businesses.

In the current cycle, 101 innovations were logged by employees and the leading teams were awarded a total of approximately R5 million in prize money. This takes the cumulative total close to R85 million worth of prizes since the programme was launched in 2004.

FNB CEO, Jacques Celliers says: “This programme is a continuation of our commitment to exceed the expectations of our customers by delivering financial solutions on platform. Our approach is to re-imagine the future by paying attention to the current and future needs of customers and the society at large. Considering the economic and social challenges that are facing individuals and businesses, this is the perfect time to accelerate and scale our contextual solutions ecosystem. As a result, we have aligned the cycle of our Innovators programme to our financial year to support our strategic objectives.”

The top innovations for the first cycle of the 2020/21 Innovators programme include:

• Easy Zero digital solution for the entry-level income market: This is a digital solution which solves for financial inclusion by enabling customers to open a digital bank account from anywhere using any cellphone. Customers who use the solution pay no monthly account fees.

• Cashflow Relief Product Design and Build: Instead of following the industry standard approach of a payment holiday, the Cashflow Relief programme was designed with the long-term financial wellbeing of the customer in mind through its efficiency.

• Disputes Platform: This is the re-engineering of the internal payments core systems by decommissioning manual or paper-based processes in favour of a digital paperless experience.

• CollectionsX for customer interactions on platform: The innovation helps customers remedy arrears on credit products through a user-friendly, tailor-made and manageable repayment solutions on platform.

• Geo Tagged Messages: An enhanced inContact message with GEO-location to allow customers to see the location where a transaction was done. InContact messages via the FNB App allow customers to monitor activity on the bank accounts.

• 2^nd Factor Authentication: A secure, plug, playable and scalable Second Factor Authentication platform provided to the group.

Jolandé Duvenage who heads up the Innovators programme says employees across the respective businesses are challenged to constantly think differently, and as such innovation is embedded in their DNA. 

“Innovation is not a thing; it is an end-to-end process which starts with observing our customers’ needs and how we can innovate to enhance their lives. Our internal Innovators programme acts as a platform to help support, drive and celebrate relevant innovation across our organisation under a framework called: Inspire, Ideate, Implement and Celebrate. We are super exciting to be walking our platform journey with customers and our employees are even more inspired to solve some of the local and global challenges that customers and the society at large are grappling with,” concludes Duvenage.

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