Absa beats international rivals for another top Innovation Award

Absa’s multi channel service - CashSend, continues to reap numerous citations and accolades from prestigious international bodies after it landed its second international award in four weeks.

CashSend scooped the grand prize IFS Award for Outstanding Innovation as well as the Most Promising New Product in the 2009 Financial Innovation Awards at a gala ceremony held in Covent Garden, London on Thursday 3 December.

This follows the capture of another international award; The Banking Technology Award for The Most Innovative Use of IT in Hyde Park, London on November 5 in recognition of Absa’s endeavours to lead the technological cutting edge.

Prior to this, Absa was named the Most Innovative Bank in Africa by African Banker Magazine – meaning the bank has grabbed three international awards for innovation in a space of two months.

The awards are among the financial services industry’s most prestigious awards, recognising best practices that emerge from the most successful innovative and well executed strategic use of technology in transforming and enhancing their business.

In winning this year’s award, Absa was cited for CashSend’s innovation which enables the bank to more effectively offer customers a unique experience by making banking truly accessible anywhere and anytime.

CashSend allows Absa customers to transfer cash from their own cheque or savings accounts to anyone around the country. The recipient can visit any of the many Absa ATMs to withdraw the sent cash without needing a bank card or account.

The sender (an Absa account holder) uses Internet banking, cell phone banking or an Absa ATM to create a numeric 6-digit access code during the transaction and provide it to the recipient together with the exact amount transferred.

Once the transaction has been confirmed, the CashSend system will then send a unique 10-digit PIN code to the recipient’s cell phone.

The recipient simply enters these PIN codes into any Absa ATM to instantly receive the cash that has been transferred. The sender can track the transaction to see if and when the money is collected. Recipients have 30 days to collect the money.

A transaction fee of R6.50 plus R1 for every R100 transferred is charged to the sender to cover the cost of the transfer and ATM withdrawal. Payment of up to R1000 can be made on the Internet and cell phone banking, and up to R3000 made via an ATM.

Absa beat off competition from HSBC, Turkish Economy Bank, Charity Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the New Product category. In the Outstanding Innovation grand prize Absa was chosen among fierce competition from a list of entries from a strong line-up of global financial services giants, among them Barclays and HSBC, in 6 categories.

The awards are a further testament of Absa’s stellar performance in the industry and highlight the excellence in product innovations by the bank even in times of an economic downturn.

Winning the awards is also a triumph for the bank’s staff and management and confirms the strength not only of its offering to customers, but also its direction and strategy.

Absa also views these awards as an additional responsibility that will entail it to elevate its efforts towards implementing comprehensive strategic planning to provide more innovative products and services, and to cater to the demands of a dynamic and fast developing economic environment.

“Aside from its use as an effective urban-to-rural payments mechanism, we see our clients using CashSend in a variety of circumstances, including small business owners,” explains Absa’s Managing Executive for Digital Channels Christo Very.

“Enabling people to make these payments from their channel of choice – cellphones, the Internet or at an ATM – has been crucial in its adoption.”

“The recognition that CashSend is currently receiving at an international level is a testimony to our efforts of becoming one of the world’s most innovative banks – highlighting the importance of constant innovation in times of the economic down cycle,” concludes Vrey.