South Africa’s First National Bank links its mobile banking application to Facebook

First National Bank of South Africa has linked its mobile banking application to Facebook, allowing users to run the application from within the social media site.

To run their banking through Facebook, bank clients need to link their social media profiles to their mobile banking account. Once linked they can access the 'FNB Banking on Facebook' application from within Facebook. They can check their balances, purchase prepaid products including airtime, SMS and BlackBerry bundles.

Ravesh Ramlakan, CEO of FNB Cellphone Banking says that of the 4.7 million active Facebook users in South Africa, 150 000 are FNB Facebook fans.

"As a bank, we average around 15 000 conversations monthly, via social media, with existing and potential customers," he says. "It is without a doubt that social media banking is the next frontier - to us this is a channel that will provide our customers with more choice and convenience to do their banking."

FNB also recently launched a mobile service for users to send voucher codes to their friends on Facebook. The coupons can be redeemed as pre-paid airtime or converted to cash using the bank's e-Wallet application.