“This year we saw big changes in the way customers approach their digital banking. The increased availability of mobile apps, wider usage of self-service features and new security concerns are a few of the changes that banks and customers have had to adapt to.”

So says Henk Pretorius, Columinate CEO, explaining that the second annual Internet Banking SITEisfaction survey is important as it provides insights into one of the fastest changing areas of customer banking.

Columinate, online research specialists have released the results of the survey.

The survey is understood to be the most comprehensive report on customers’ usage and perceptions of e-banking in South Africa.

It is also quizzed over 1400 South African e-bankers on their online banking habits and attitudes, which reveal several interesting trends.

Furthermore, the survey revealed that the South African e-banking landscape has in the last year seen an increase in the number of customers who use mobile phones and tablets to do their banking.

According to Columinate, Mobile phone banking, through both banking apps and phone browsers, has increased to 54% from 42% last year. E-bankers who do their banking via tablets have risen to 17% compared to 10% last year. This trend is likely to continue with Absa’s recent mobile app release, which means that the traditional “big four” banks now all offer a mobile banking app. Capitec might be missing an opportunity in this regard, with 44% of its customers indicating that they intend to use a banking app should one be made available to them.

Further findings revealed that users are not only using more devices to access their bank accounts, but they are also making use of more of the available online banking features.

According to Pretorius, the results showed that aside from making payments and managing accounts, online banking users are becoming increasingly likely to log in to apply for new banking products (59%) such as loans and overdrafts. Users also showed an increased likelihood to buy airtime (60% up from 53%), data (29% up from 23%) and lottery tickets (19% up from 13%) via their online banking service.

“Customer satisfaction with internet banking facilities was compared again this year using Columinate’s SITEisfaction measure. The results revealed that FNB has stretched its lead over the competitors by attaining a SITEisfaction score of 75, which is the highest score measured to date. Capitec has surprised again by achieving an overall second position in the ranking with a score of 62, outdoing three more established players in the process. Standard Bank and Nedbank are tied with a score of 50, whilst Absa attained the lowest score of 36.

Pretorius says that FNB’s achievement is due to its ability to offer the most comprehensive service that performs on all levels. “FNB users are most likely to report that their e-banking is user-friendly, innovative and secure. FNB has also succeeded in getting users to utilise more of the available services than other banking users. This has positive implications for both the users who capitalize on the convenience of internet banking and for the bank to ensure greater customer loyalty”.

Other findings revealed that fraud remains a concern for e-bankers, with phishing attacks still the most common type of fraud. The number of users who have been a target of fraud has increased to over 50% this year, which is a worrying trend. Pretorius notes that the variety of financial fraud types has increased in recent years. “Banking customers have to contend with familiar and novel attacks on their accounts: phishing, smishing, deposit refund scams, 419 scams and so the list goes on. It’s no surprise then that awareness of the different scams differs widely. While 90% have heard of phishing, only 54% have heard of the SMS version of this scam, called ‘smishing’. This shows the difficulty in educating customers on how to be vigilant against these attacks.”

Pretorius adds, “The reluctance of banking users to use these services is predominantly due to security concerns, lack of clarity on protection from users banks if accounts are linked to the service, and low awareness of the advantages offered by these tools.”

Meanwhile, in other more recent developments, various online financial management tools have been launched locally by banks and third parties alike. The survey results revealed that awareness (11%) and usage (2%) of these services remain very low and on par with last year.

Mobile internet revenue in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa are bound to double its cost between 2013 and 2018, says a new report by ABI Research.

The report is supported by the strong per subscription data consumption which is increasing at CAGRs of 45-49%.This means that the data traffic will double in less than every two years on average; this is caused by the increased availability of affordable smart devices in the near future.

It has been predicted that in 2018, Latin America and Middle East will be seeing an average user contributing more than 2.5 Gigabytes of traffic per month.

With the low literacy levels in Africa, the messaging has been in very low volume, however, with the fastest mobile subscription growth and over-the-top applications being less prevalent, it will be the only region to enjoy consistent positive messaging service revenue growth throughout the entire forecast horizon.

Research associate at ABI Research said: “Nonetheless, a key determinant of the future consumption pattern will be the regulatory policies in the regions, For instance, the recent implementation of mobile number portability measure in Nigeria and the reduction in mobile termination rate in Honduras and Jamaica will go a long way in shaping the competitive landscape and encourage cellular usage.”

These rising trends do not certainly suggest improved profitability. The vice president and practice director, Jake Saunders, said that operators the specified regions need to be prepared to respond to the new competition policies.

Saunders gave an example of slashing termination rates; this would mean that consumers will have fewer reasons to subscribe to different operators simultaneously. He also predicted that the battle to gain market share would become more intense.

Google has been given the go ahead to assist in executing strategies in the United States to the vacant television broadcasting spectrum for broadband Internet access in remote areas where traditional cable hookups are expensive and difficult to provide.

They name the strategy, “TV white space,” For a long time the empty frequencies have been viewed as a possible channel to allocate broadband internet to users whose infrastructure is not updated.

Google has been seeking certification from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to become a certified database administrator for those segments of TV white spaces across the United States.

That final certification from the FCC has now occurred as Google’s database of white space has recently been accepted by the agency.

According to the FCC’s approval letter, the certification of Google as a database administrator means that Google will be able to provide information to service providers about which areas of the TV white band will be available for providing Internet use.

“This is an exciting step forward, With FCC certification, we can do more to help make spectrum available. We are ready to work with leaders in the wireless industry—those developing certified devices that can talk to a database—to help them gain access to TV White spaces spectrum to help bring new technologies and services to market,” wrote Norman.

In March, Google launched a trial white space project in South Africa, It involves 10 schools in the Cape Town area which will receive wireless broadband over a white space network. One advantage of using white space is that its low-frequency signals can travel longer distances than other broadcast signals

Google’s white spaces database is available for viewing on the Google Spectrum Database Web page.

A new web platform which was launched last month is set to make the Tunisian youth have a smooth and ride selecting the career path they want to take.

Wajjahni (Arabic for “Guide me”) is a website introduced in cooperation with the Centre des Jeunes Dirigents (CJD), the Ministry of Vocational Training and Employment, and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enable young Tunisians to enhance their employability.

This web platform will help the young stars know what is trending on the market. This will give an advice to which degree one should pursue and also act as an eye opener for job seekers as it has an option of 620 jobs.

Each posted job is accompanied by a video message from a Tunisian who has chosen that career path.

The platform was launched by Amira Mimouni, a professor who conducted a study on the state of employment and employability in Tunisia in 2011.

“When I was a professor at IHEC Carthage, I was struck by the lack of support for our youth. I conducted a survey of 1,000 students, and the findings were very scary. They didn’t know anything about the different institutions available, the different jobs they could have, the fiscal advantages, how to write a CV, how to behave in a job interview,” said Mimouni .

The professor also said that the videos are easy to run and efficient as it tells the tale of a person right from the educational background, to the struggle to find a job, to finding passion.

“We are simply playing the role of the media. We collect reliable data, work on it, and present it to our audience,” Mimouni said. “We aim to educate by demonstrating, by inspiring people, by explaining to them it is possible and doable [to pursue an effective and favorable career path].”

Amira added that they have received a lot of help from CJD given that they have good mastery in the job market of today in Tunisia and also the many ministries which have offered to post in the website.

Africans will now have their own .africa domain, this name is set to be introduced towards the end of 2013.

The top level domain name will make it possible for businesses and other organizations to register domain names ending in .africa for the first time. However, the domain registration process is yet to be revealed.

Donvay Wegierski, director of Werksmans Attorneys and member of its Intellectual Property practice in Stellenbosch, says that the .africa domain was created “by Africans for Africans” and marked Africa’s strides in growth and development.

He said that the domain will present an opportunity to identify the African continent online for the very first time. The director added that they are expecting many existing and new companies across the continent to take up the .africa domain to show to the world where they are from.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the co-ordinator of the launch of the new domain names.

“We expect the .africa domain to launch in two phases, first the Sunrise phase and second the Landrush phase,” Wegierski argues.

During the Sunrise phase, trade mark owners have priority to register .africa domains incorporating their trade marks for a certain period of time.

“It is for this reason that trade mark owners should validate their trade marks at the TradeMark Clearinghouse (TMCH) as only trade mark owners with TMCH validation can take advantage of the Sunrise period because it is only possible for the TMCH to validate registered trademarks and therefore only proprietors of registered trademarks will have preference,“ continues Wegierski .

The second phase, which is the  Landrush , will open then and there and domains can be registered on a first-come-first-serve basis.

The .africa registry will be managed by UniForum South Africa, trading as ZA Central Registry (ZACR).

The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has accepted Airtel’s mobile money to make large-scale salary payments.

About 66,000 civil servants in the DRC received their salary of May this year through Airtel Money.

With the support from the DRC central Government and in partnership with the Congolese Association of Banks and local banks, more than 1,100 policemen received their salaries via Airtel Money in December 2012.

DRC remains one of the countries with inadequate banking facilities in Africa, but swift spread in mobile money sector has enabled the government to influence mobile money to increase financial inclusion for the underprivileged.

Mobile money G2P payments have the possibility to bring banking services to beneficiaries by ensuring that payments land in accounts which permit recipients to save and make dealings.

Airtel has been at the forefront of technological innovations. When it launched the Airtel Money services in DRC in March 2012, the telecommunications company introduced the concept of mobile banking in the Central African country. The mobile Money platform has been widely adopted by customers for the purchase of airtime, Person-2-Person cash transfers and utility bill Payments.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government has received negative reaction from the Kenyan parents in regards to the laptop project that his Jubilee government had promised during the campaign.

Musau Ndunda, chairman of the Kenya National Association of Parents said that the group thinks the money for laptops should instead go toward raising teachers’ salaries and feeding children.

The president had proposed to give laptops to 1.2 million children who start school every year as part of a wider plan to make the East African country an Internet hub. The program, which will cost the government $615 million in three years, is set to start later this year.

The country has a shortfall of 40,000 teachers while the 200,000 teachers across public schools in Kenya are currently striking over unpaid housing, transport and medical allowances promised 16 years ago.

Ndunda said Kenya also needs 42,000 classrooms. He said the money used for the laptops needs to be used to increase the number of children in the country’s school feeding program, meant to help children from poor backgrounds to stay in school and improve their health and nutrition.

Currently teachers do not have the capacity to implement the laptop project because they have not been trained and the government has not developed a curriculum for the project added Ndunda.

He said there are uncertainties that the laptops would be lost or stolen, mentioning the recent scandal in which 70 million textbooks in a free primary-school education program went missing.

Louis Otieno of Microsoft Africa Initiatives said in a statement that through the Partners in Learning Schools program in last five years, Microsoft had trained 32,600 teachers. The impact, he added, was being felt by more than 1.8 million children.

Louis alleged that the government has not reached a final agreement with Microsoft, which will implement the project.

Ugandans will now experience better government services as their government has taken up an e-governance infrastructure.

This program has been commissioned by the National Information Technology Authority (NITA). The system is aimed at guiding government ministries, departments and agencies while implementing projects.

The Information Technology project management methodology lists out the governance structures which the executing bodies should have in place before enterprising any project.

Ugandan ministries are required to defend why such projects should be applied, the expected outcomes, the project’s development processes and compile project reports to simplify decisions making.

The executive director of NITA-U, Mr. James Saaka, said that the authority had come up with this system focusing on government research and analyses from unsuccessful information technology projects which were now termed as “white elephants” where lots of money has been injected.

Mr. Saaka added that when implemented, the methodology would impose the formation and application of structured processes, procedures and practices which will ensure consistency in design, execution and governance of projects in ministries, departments and agencies.

He believed that the system, among others,  will also reduce the duplication of services among government institutions because it will develop a centralized data base which the institutions will want to use from time to time therefore minimizing wastage of resources.

“Look at banks, the National Social Security Fund, Immigrations passport control, the recent Sim Card registration, national ID project, the national census… All these need to identify the citizens but how can they do without a national databank? This forces these institutions to carry out their out identification programmes because some institutions have gone ahead faster than others,” said NITA-U executive manager.

He said the methodology does not require any changes because all projects that require computerised systems to store and process data have standard operational standard

The first, out of the seven, navigation satellites which are intended to deliver a regional positioning system was launched on Tuesday in India as Kenya struggles with teachers pay.

Related to the U.S. owned Global Positioning System,IRNSS-1A and among the first of the seven satellites planned, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) was launched into space aboard PSLV-C22 which is a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle of the Indian Space Research Organization.

The intention of the satellite is to provide position information in the Indian region and 1500 kilometers around the Indian mainland. It will offer standard positioning services to all users, and coded restricted services to authorized users. The IRNSS system is expected to be accomplished by 2016.

India wants to use the system for an assortment of procedures some of which are precise timing, disaster management, mobile phone applications, vehicle tracking and fleet management, visual and voice navigation for drivers and terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation.

Among the seven satellites to be positioned for the IRNSS project, three will be in geostationary orbit, while the rest will be in inclined geosynchronous orbit. Satellites in geostationary orbit follow the direction of the rotation of the earth so as to be in the same position relative to the earth at all times.

Ground stations for the generation and transmission of navigation parameters, satellite control and satellite ranging and monitoring have been set up in 15 locations across the country.

Europe is also setting up a global navigation satellite system called Galileo, which will inter-operate with the U.S. GPS and Russian GLONASS global satellite navigation systems.

The IRNSS is expected to provide a position accuracy of better than 20 meters in the major service area. The mission life of the satellites is 10 years, ISRO said.

UPDATE: Kenya was at the same level of economic development as the Asian tigers but has long been left behind due to governance issues.

LekkeSlaap has publicized a new refined search tool where guests can filter their results for accommodation across South Africa. This comes just three months since LekkeSlaap, the Afrikaans first accommodation booking site, was introduced in South Africa.

Guests can search where to go in accordance to specific criteria such as “Pet Friendly Establishments”, “Braai Facilities”, and “Secure Parking”, to name just a few. Users just need to enter their location, tick the desired filter, and hit search.

Since their launce LekkeSlaap has been a great deal of assistance for Afrikaans on the internet and has proved to be a success with the clients internationally and locally.

The company has constantly been monitoring requests from guests and quickly found that South Africans have a check list of certain specifications that ensures a great holiday.

“When guests enquired about accommodation, we found that travellers had specific criteria that were the deal makers or breakers. These included things like, if their pets can travel with them, if there is a braai area, or if they will have secure parking etc.” says LekkeSlaap’s Marketing Manager Denise Neethling.

The company’s marketing director added that LekkeSlaap listens to the users requests, so when a guest books an accommodation on LekkeSlaap.co.za, they will get precisely what they are looking for without having to go through long lists.

The official facebook app for the Windows Phone 8 has just singled out a major revamp and is now known as the Facebook 5.0 for windows 8.

It comes with absolutely new features  such as a restored user interface, better navigation, support for high-res pictures, post sharing, Facebook timeline view and another Facebook Beta app that can be downloaded separately among others.

The Beta app is available as a limited release for the past few weeks; it has now been released to the wider public on the WP App Store, but only for users of WP8 software.

In a statement, Microsoft said that the new update will bring a ton of new features and improvements that many of the consumers have been asking for.

The company added that it is also working to bring these features to the windows 7 version of the app later in the summer.

Nigeria has increased its mobile subscription by 7 percent since the beginning of this year,this percentage equates the total number of connections to 120 million. This is is confirmed by statistics released by the country’s communication authority, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

The statistics states that there has been an additional 6.2 million subscribers between December 2012 and April 2013 which have pushed the current total active mobile subscriptions in the country to 119.3 million.

Informa Telecoms and Media predicted that Africa will have the highest rate of growth in mobile subscriptions among major world regions. They also predicted that the number would grow by 17.5 percent by the end of 2012 which is a higher than the major world average of 10.75 percent over the same period.

This growth has seen various applications being launched in the market to their success. Products like mobile money transfer have become a big innovation even in private banks.

NCC believes that the telecoms firms should continue to invest heavily on network expansion to accommodate more subscribers on their networks.

The commission further said that the networks can accommodate 72.6 million additional subscribers, despite all four operators being heavily fined last year for poor quality of service issues.

Nigeria’s mobile market is dominated by 4 Global System for Mobile (GSM) operators (MTN), Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat.