The FirstRand Group's e-commerce venture, eBucks.com, announced today that it is profitable eight months ahead of initial expectations.

According to Paul Harris CEO of FirstRand Bank Holdings, eBucks.com used less than R100 million in peak funding of the R300 million set aside for the initiative by the FirstRand Group. "eBucks.com is now profitable on a month-to-month basis and is outperforming all initial expectations".

eBucks.com, the Internet Banking portal for First National Bank, Origin, WesBank and Ansbacher, was launched in October 2000. The initiative entered a highly competitive environment with Old Mutual's Fundsnet, Icanonline and Standard Bank's Bluebeans all playing in a similar space. The pace stepped up even further when Saambou announced the launch of it's Internet bank, 20Twenty.

"The eBucks.com portal supports First National Bank's 129 000 Internet Bankers," says Angus Brown, Head of Internet Banking at eBucks.com. "The volume of transactions being processed is staggering. In November over R3,8 billion worth of transactions were processed and in December R4.2 billion. In excess of 1 million interim statements were also downloaded in each month.

"We have found that the number of transactions is growing daily. As individuals become more comfortable with Internet banking they are using it more and more. Particularly to view monthly statements and make monthly payments."

As the uptake increases, the pressure on eBucks.com to improve their systems intensifies.

"In recent months FNB and eBucks.com have boosted system availability and improved response times of transactions. Independent monitoring of this performance is done every 15 minutes - with steadily improving results every month.

"We have also invested in hardware and network capacity, to ensure our systems are robust and response times remain fast even during month-end peaks."

Brown adds that the announcement of the dropping of the monthly subscription fees for both FNB Telephone and Internet banking in November was well received with registration numbers more than doubling.

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.