Barclays revamps electronic banking

market in order to maintain its dominance.
This is despite the slow uptake of mobile banking services and products by customers across the banking sector who remain attached to the traditional brick and mortar banking.

Radipati-Sebusang said Barclays Bank would continue to introduce new electronic banking services and products for customers’ convenience based on latest mobile and Internet banking solutions.
“The bank has quite a number of electronic banking channels and products aimed at diverting customers from the traditional brick and mortar in an effort to make life much easier and provide convenience to customers enabling them to make transactions from anywhere and anytime,” she said.

Radipati-Sebusang said the services currently offered include cell- phone banking also known as Hello Money, Internet Banking, SMS Alert and E-statement, adding that her bank is constantly improving Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) — the pioneer of electronic channels — functionalities. “We want ATMs to offer more than just cash. We have just introduced the cheque book ordering functionality in our ATMs across the network and this will offer our customers convenience as they can order a cheque book anytime, anywhere across the network in our ATM’s.” Citing Botswana Telecommunication Authority’s observation that Internet growth is not as huge as perceived, Radipati-Sebusang said Barclays has embarked on providing Internet facilities within their bankinghalls.

“Most of our banking halls are being installed with the Internet workstations for customers to make transactions without having to stand in queues.”
Commenting on the security fears that electronic channels cannot guarantee the protection enjoyed from brick and mortar transactions, by using identification cards and individual’s signature verification before a transaction is made, Radipati-Sebusang said: “People still prefer to deal with us face to face but we continuously assure our customers that it is safe to use Barclays’ electronic banking channels.”

“Fraudsters are busy as well, so security is at the core of everything we do and our number one priority in order to protect our customers.” — CAJ News.