Almost R600 million spent on FNB Virtual Cards over Black Friday Weekend
FNB customers once again hit R3 billion in purchases on Black Friday, in line with last year’s highest spend peak. FNB saw a positive shift in usage of the FNB Virtual Card, with a 94% year on year increase in customer spend over Black Friday weekend.
Additionally, while Black Friday transactions remained flat, strong growth was seen over Saturday and Sunday, with a robust 9.7% increase in transactions made by FNB customers compared to prior year. Many customers took advantage of payday coinciding with Black Friday deals, which made Black Friday a weekend event.
Senzo Nsibande, CEO of FNB Card says, ” While consumers have been financially burdened by inflation and high interest rates over the past year, we’ve seen strong volumes and value spent over this time despite the slow start on Friday morning. As expected, the most popular spend categories, included travel, groceries, and digital technology. This uptake mirrors the ongoing appetite for travel by South Africans as the travel category showed a 17% increase this year.”
Ashley Saffy, Head of Spend and Customer Value Management at FNB Card, notes that “Consumers have increasingly shown a strong preference for safer and more convenient payments, with virtual card, online spend and digital wallets spend increasing significantly to prior year. Over Black Friday weekend, 54% of all instore transactions were contactless, which increased by 10% year on year. Online spend also performed well this weekend, with 24% of all spend online. For credit card specifically, 45% of customer spend was online, which has increased by 7% since prior year. It is fantastic to see this growth as our customers are becoming more familiar with the benefits of using more digital and modern payments.”
With Black Friday giving way to the start of the holiday season spending, FNB urges its customers to continue using their Virtual Cards for safer online transactions and to approve online purchases through the FNB App to avoid fraud over this time. The Card Verification Value (CVV) security number for FNB Virtual Cards changes regularly, which adds an additional layer of security when transaction online. FNB also offers complimentary Purchase Protect insurance for up to R15,000 for 30 days post online purchases made with a FNB or RMB Private Bank Virtual Card.
“During this holiday season, we encourage our customers to always be vigilant when shopping online or instore and to manage their budgets to avoid excessive spending. Our customers can also access our Nav>> Smart Budgeting functionality on the FNB App to manage, set up and track their budgets. Lastly, they can also maximise benefits such as eBucks rewards to make their money go further over the holiday season in areas such as fuel, travel, and grocery”, concluded Nsibande.
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