New leadership for FNB Cellphone Banking

Yolande van Wyk and Ravesh Ramlakan were appointed CEO of Smart Services and CEO of Cellphone Banking Services respectively, after the resignation of Len Pienaar, CEO of FNB’s mCommerce division.

“After five years of launching Cellphone Banking, we are doubling our management capacity in this area with the appointment of Yolande van Wyk as CEO of Smart Services and Ravesh Ramlakan as CEO of Cellphone Banking Services”, said Liné Wiid, CEO of FNB Smart Solutions.

The appointment of the new senior managers was necessary for FNB’s mCommerce division, which is currently experiencing major growth in cellphone banking services.

Yolade van Wyk will oversee all eMoney initiatives, FNB Cell Pay Point – FNB’s online mobile payment gateway – as well as Send Money, a new mobile money transfer solutions via cellphone.

Prior to her appointment, Yolande van Wyk was Head of Expansion in the mCommerce business unit falling under FNB Smart Solutions. She was responsible for the management and implementation of solutions such as Cellphone Banking, Prepaid Products and SMS Notifications within FNB and FirstRand subsidiaries.

Ravesh Ramlakan will be responsible for all Cellphone Banking, Transact and Messaging for South Africa and the African Subsidiaries. He joined FNB in 2006 as Head of Transact Solutions and was later promoted to Chief Commercial Officer responsible for the business areas within mCommerce.

Len Pienaar, the former CEO for FNB mCommerce for five years, will leave his position at the end of January to join international messaging company Clickatell in Cape Town.

“It has been a great opportunity and incredibly rewarding in my five year tenure as CEO to see the rate of growth and the impact that FNB Cellphone Banking has had on people who have previously been unable to access banking solutions”, said Pienaar, confident in the recent new appointments for FNB Cellphone Banking leadership.

FNB currently has over one million active Cellphone Banking customers who performed more than 56 million transactions to the value of over R7,2 billion in the last 12 months. Apart from South Africa, the bank also rolls out its Cellphone Banking services in Zambia, Nambia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia.