First National Bank (FNB) on Thursday said it hit record levels in cellphone banking during the festive season, with R1-billion worth of banking conducted in 10-million transactions during December 2009.

This exceeded the previous year's cellphone banking use over that period by more than 100 percent, it said.

"Cellphone Banking has truly come of age in South Africa and is now becoming the preferred choice of banking. The high adoption rates we've experienced show that it's a trusted and convenient channel for customers to perform a wide range of transactions from checking balances to buying prepaid airtime and lottery tickets or paying bills," said Len Pienaar, CEO of FNB mCommerce.

The group cited the popularity of its Send Money solution along with the purchase of lottery tickets via phone.

"Although we have seen our growth primarily coming from our mainstream customers during 2009, December has seen a strong usage from our traditional and more affluent customers. This is typical for December as these customers are away from home and work and don't have access to their traditional banking channels. Cellphone Banking then becomes the preferred alternative," concluded Pienaar.