Banks lose out in advert war of words

FNB and Standard Bank have been involved in a war of words but both have ended up losing.

The banks laid no less than five complaints against each other with the Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA) which issued five rulings, three this week, in which it ordered the banks to immediately withdraw the misleading adverts.

This was despite both banks responding to justify the misleading claims.

FNB complained about Standard Bank’s street pole campaign in Sandton, which promised “free” cellphone, telephone and internet banking, saying that Standard charged a R99 monthly fee on its Elite account package for unlimited transactions and that on other accounts customers were charged for transactions.

FNB also complained about two Standard Bank adverts in newspapers which stated: “Myth: Most banks won’t give someone like me a loan. Fact: At Standard Bank we can give our customers BETTER deals on loans” and that the bank was “helping customers save 50 percent on bank fees”.

Standard Bank submitted an extract from an Experian Credit Bureau report, which compared to Absa, FNB and Nedbank.

However, the ASA said it was not possible to ascertain that the comparisons were fair.

Standard Bank lodged two complaints against FNB newspaper advertisements.

In one FNB claimed that it was the only SA bank that offered online “share investing” services “safely”; the only bank to offer the purchase of airtime, SMS or data bundles and the only bank where customers could change their bank PIN online.

The ASA ordered that all the misleading claims be immediately withdrawn by both banks.

Both FNB and Standard Bank welcomed the rulings. FNB chief marketing officer Bernice Samuels said: “We respect and support the process… which is a win for consumers and in the interests of fair competition.” - Saturday Star