A survivor is eBucks, originally created by FirstRand as a standalone Internet bank before it became clear that its existing bricks and mortar First National Bank would need a cyberspace branch. Whereas Standard Bank’s Bluebean Internet business has dwindled into a credit card brand, presumably to replace the Barclaycard franchise Standard lost when the UK banking group bought Absa, eBucks has grown in its niche as a loyalty programme. Much of eBucks’ growth has been over the past four years since Lezanne Human was appointed as the FirstRand unit’s chief executive officer. As far as the nascent e-commerce industry has veterans, Human is one, having worked at Liberty Life’s MyLife foray into cyberspace before it was merged with Standard Bank’s bluebean venture. Critics who say loyalty programmes need advanced maths to understand may be disconcerted to hear that Human is an applied mathematician trained at Stellenbosch University. Human said IFAC(13) doesn’t affect eBucks because all its “virtual money” is backed by real currency. read more
[Tags]ebucks, human, loyalty, bank, cyberspace, internet, forex news[/Tags]
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