Tit-for-tat banks guilty of misleading advertising

April 27 2012 at 09:00am Brendan Roane brendan.roane@inl.co.za BOTH Standard Bank and First National Bank have been found guilty of misleading advertising, after they accused each other of ambiguous and unsubstantiated marketing. The banks took each other to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) last month over adverts they believed to be misleading to consumers. FNB was found to be misleading for its claim that its Smart Zero account is the “first bank account in South Africa with a zero monthly fee”, as other banks have offered this service in the past, including Standard Bank and even FNB itself. In one of its complaints, FNB claimed Standard Bank’s posters, which read “free cellphone banking, free telephone banking and free internet banking”, were misleading. The ASA agreed and found the posters did not “clearly inform consumers that certain costs apply” because the bank either charged a subscription fee for unlimited transactions or charged per transaction. Standard Bank has two weeks to remove the offending posters. FNB could not substantiate its headline in a print advert in a Sunday newspaper in February which read “Be with FNB, the bank that LEADS in saving you MONEY”. The advert was based on misleading or unsubstantiated claims and was found to be confusing to consumers. FNB also hit out over Standard Bank’s claim of “We even pay your network charges” for its internet banking. This claim is “highly unlikely because third-party network providers are not going to specifically measure and disclose only banking-related usage”, said FNB’s complaint to the ASA. ASA ruled that Standard Bank would have to amend this advert to read “We even pay your mobile charges when you dial…” followed by the number the consumer would phone to register for cellphone banking. This is because only the phone call to register for internet banking, and not the data used in internet banking, would be covered by Standard Bank.