Seeing that Absa, a South African bank, would come up with its banking application at the end of this year, Tyler Reed, 24, has proved he has no patience for such delays and is hence creating own app.
Reed is working on his application that would help him transact on his Absa account using his iPhone, reports TechCentral.
It was originally a “wrapper” for the banking portal, Reed thought he would improve on it to have a better experience on his phone.
“It’s about 80 percent complete,” Reed says, “it uses the mobile banking portal and scrapes the necessary information from it. Absa doesn’t offer an open API [application programming interface] so I made another plan.”
Reed said he has been waiting for the Absa app to be launched and when it was announced that it would take a while longer, he decided to get his hands dirty and come up with his own solution.
Reed also says that his application is customisable to fit into any smartphone. He is envisaging that the bank would oppose any such move – to pull the rag under them.
Mobile banking has been a big issue in South Africa from early this year when 22seven came out with its portal to manage accounts from several banks.
A number of South African banks reportedly opposed this development including Absa and First National Bank and soon after that storm, Absa announced that it would come up with a banking app for its customers.
In May this year, FNB South Africa introduced a geo-payment capability for its banking app, bringing more tech friendly mode of payment.
Maybe Absa should partner with Reed to cut the long waiting period for the app.
