Finance house pumps R300m into new e-commerce venture MADELEINE VAN NIEKERK

Financial services group FirstRand has started to roll out a series of e-commerce initiatives, beginning with eBucks, the world's first bank-backed, secure e-currency which extends beyond the Internet.

The instrument, a business-to-consumer initiative, will be followed by Hyphen, which is a business-to-business initiative offering payment solutions to companies. Hyphen is set to be launched this week.

"There are a lot of new dot.com companies around and now the old players are striking back at them. The empire strikes back. This is a totally new concept, a world first .com idea," says Michael Jordaan, CEO of eBucks.com.

"eBucks will be launched in September and the intention is to get a number of SA retailing partners, specific e-tailing partners, on board," says Jordaan.

"We are talking to big retailers and we are very confident that they will come on board."

"We are talking to specific people. We had initial discussions with a number of potential partners, and they have given an indication that they will join in."

There is not a proper payment alternative to credit cards in SA, says Jordaan, with only 5% of the adult population having a credit card,

"A lot of people do not want to disclose their security card number, but with this solution, one does not need a credit card."

He predicts that eBucks will be profitable within the next three years.

"It has significant profit potential for the existing FirstRand group, we will have a common currency across the group."

The group has committed R300m over the next three years to eBucks.com, which will serve as an electronic gateway through which customers gain access to the services of other FirstRand companies.

These companies include First National Bank, Origin, Henry Ansbacher, Outsurance, Momentum, Wesbank and RMB Unit trusts.

Accessing the services will enable customers to earn eBucks, as well as incentivise them to use cost-effective electronic delivery channels.

"The potential of eBucks.com is enormous," says Paul Harris, FirstRand banking group CEO and chairman of eBucks.com.

"As a group, FirstRand covers the full spectrum of financial services from insurance to banking. We process more than 50-million transactions monthly and are able to leverage our processing infrastructure over 5-million clients, 27 000 acquiring merchants and our extensive ATM networks, eBucks will be the glue to bring all this together.

"It will utilise our transaction processing expertise to underpin the new currency, which will be available to everyone, not just the minority of the SA population with Internet access."

About eBucks:

eBucks, the rewards programme offered by First National Bank (FNB) and RMB Private Bank, is acknowledged as one of South Africa's leading rewards programmes with highly active members spending in excess of 80% of the eBucks earned in any given month.