/ 9 August 2004

FNB opens portable branch in Tembisa

First National Bank, a division of FirstRand Bank Limited, has opened a portable branch in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, for personal and business customers.

The bank’s spokesperson Nono Bam said on Saturday that the branch provided all banking services. She said clients will have access to two tellers, two customer service consultants and two ATMs.

The branch is powered by a generator and is linked to FNB’s national communications network. It will open for business on August 10.

FNB’s Gauteng provincial executive Jean Ochse said: ”We are committed to taking banking to the underbanked in South Africa.”

He said the Tembisa portable branch is the first in Ekurhuleni and one of a number of portable branches that will be erected in 2004. The bank plans to have a total of 30 portable branches installed by the end of the year.

”The first FNB portable branch was launched in Mogwase, North West, in September 2003. To date, we have four more in Ikwezi, Soweto, Kosi Bay, KwaZulu- Natal, Lady Frere, Eastern Cape and Cala, Eastern Cape, making the Tembisa branch the sixth in the country,” says Ochse.

”The modular branch has full security to ensure that clients get the same standards of safety offered in any of its other branches.” – Sapa