Standard Bank has launched bluebean.com, a new brand in financial services
and online shopping.
The first financial product available from bluebean is a transaction card
which combines a normal credit card, an automatic teller machine (ATM) card
and a secure internet shopping card.
The card, incorporates Standard Bank's proprietary Secure Electronic
Payment (SEP) technology to ensure totally secure internet shopping, and
also operates like an ordinary credit card. You also have the option of
linking a garage card to your bluebean card.
Dave Parratt, a director with bluebean.com, says the internet site is the
first and only site to offer a secure web-based transaction card that can
also be used in the real world.
He says transactions on the bluebean.com site are completely secure.
This is because the financial details of the shopping transaction remain
between you and the bank within the bank's secure payment system. As a
result nobody else will have access to your personal or financial
information.
Ordinary credit cardholders can also make purchases on the bluebean.com
site, but won't benefit from the added security offered to bluebean
cardholders .
While it is possible for hackers to access credit card details divulged on
the internet and abuse information for their own gain, Parratt says the
SEP technology bluebean.com cardholders will use cannot be breached.
He says all your transaction information will be kept private and confidential
If you are a Standard Bank client registered for internet banking, you can
use any of your accounts to pay for a bluebean. com purchase.
The site is linked to more than 25 retailers and merchants offering a wide
range of products and services. There are bookstores, jewellers, wine
merchants, florists and grocers.
You can also buy and sell property, book tickets, make travel arrangements,
bid in online auctions and access a host of financial services.
The retailers and merchants have been carefully selected for what they can
offer. Their sites have been evaluated in terms of appearance, use, the
quality of their graphics and time to download.
Bluebean.com also has a reward scheme which encourages you to shop using
your bluebean.com transaction card both offline and online.
You get one percent back in points, known as "beans", for using your card
for all purchases and two percent when buying from the online mall using
the secure technology.
The beans, or points, can be redeemed immediately, but only in the
bluebean.com online shopping mall.
The card costs R75 a year. The interest rate for debit balances is 20
percent a year and on credit balances you earn a rate of nine percent a
year, irrespective of the amount of money you keep in your card. Many
traditional credit cards pay a tiered rate of interest on credit balances
which is very low for small amounts.