What happens when you give a team of enthusiastic youngsters a lot of money and a few months to shape an entirely new online financial offering? They fly, and create eBucks.

The concept for eBucks.com was first hatched in 1999, and in 2000 FirstRand Bank CEO Paul Harris announced at the group`s year-end results that a "cutting edge e-commerce initiative" would be launched. Internally, the challenge was set to launch it in 100 days.