Customers of First National Bank (FNB) in eight African countries are planned to have access to the bank’s redesigned website on Sunday 14 July, 2013.

Outside of South Africa, FNB operates in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.

FNB is the second largest bank in South Africa by market share, according to an All Media Products Survey (AMPS) released in May this year.

And the bank's revamped website has been in the works for the past two years with a pilot project having taken place in March this year, explained FNB’s online banking chief executive officer Lee-Ann van Zyl.

She added that the re-engineered website has been designed to be familiar to customers.

“We have created the first truly scalable banking site on the continent, which is not stripped-down for devices with smaller screens or simply compressed to fit. The site automatically detects and adapts to the device being used,” said van Zyl.

The website’s updated features are set to be touch screen friendly. Responsive design has also been implemented, said van Zyl.

FNB has 1.5 million users registered on its online banking platform with 1.2 million of those users actively using the service, according to van Zyl.

Since the launch of the FNB online banking platform, 88% of branch functionality has been made available online, said van Zyl.