Efma and Accenture have announced the winners of their inaugural Global Distribution & Marketing Innovation Awards for retail banks. The global program, jointly launched by Efma and Accenture, identifies and awards banks for groundbreaking customer innovations.
More than 150 banks from 54 countries around the world submitted nearly 330 case studies of customer innovations in the following categories: Digital and Mobile Excellence, Physical Distribution, Multichannel and Customer-Experience Management, Customer Analytics and Big Data, Sales Effectiveness, and Responsible Business.
The winners were selected by a combination of votes from a panel of judges composed exclusively of senior retail bankers from around the world, and online votes from Efma members.
This year’s winners include:
• Multichannel and Customer-Experience Management: Nykredit, Denmark for its Direct Banking – a team of online, remote personal advisors to help meet the needs of Nordic banking customers who prefer digital channels but still need one-to-one advice.
• Digital and Mobile Excellence: BRE Bank, Poland for its new mBank – virtual branch with a unique app-like and mobile-enabled user interface, advanced and integrated personal financial management tools, redesigned customer-centric navigation, social media-integrated offers and a number of other innovative features not typically associated with online banking.
• Sales Effectiveness: Hana Bank, Korea for its Hana N Cyber – An internet/mobile product sales model that strategically integrates on/offline channels and acquires new customers without the limitations and requirements that come from transacting at a branch location.
• Customer Analytics and Big Data: Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy for Customer Dialogue Analytics – A new analytics approach with the aim to monitor and stimulate actions about overall relationship and selling activities in branches.
• Physical Distribution: Aktifbank, Turkey for the Aktif Nokta Project – A versatile distribution channel where customers get banking and many other non-financial retail services at the same time.
Allied Irish Bank, Ireland for “The Lab” – technology-driven digital banking store that brings all of AIB’s leading edge technologies together in a physical hub to showcase, test and introduce customers to the best digital banking experience in Ireland.
• Responsible Business: BNP Paribas Personal Finance (Cetelem), France for its financially fragile loan holder prevention program – anticipates loan holder’s budget problems before their financial situations become too difficult, offering helpful advice and effective solutions.
Maybank Berhad, Malaysia for its CashVille Kidz – a nationwide early financial education program that teaches good money management habits and empowers the younger generation to become financially savvy.
Two additional awards were granted to:
• BRE Bank, Poland, which was recognized as “ The Most Disruptive Innovation ” for radically changing and redefining the way it does business.
• La Caixa, Spain, which was recognized as “ The Global Innovator of the Year ” for committing its overall vision to innovation and developing innovative products to transform its business model.
“Many of the most impressive innovations came out of emerging markets, in Eastern Europe and Asia, competing with some of the biggest established banks,” said Patrick Desmarès, Secretary General of Efma. “On the other hand, some of these established banks, such as BNP Paribas, La Caixa and Intesa Sanpaolo, are also demonstrating that the organizational culture change, which is required to execute an innovation strategy, is within the reach of the largest financial institutions. We hope that these innovations inspire others to examine what they are currently doing and identify opportunities to make further advancements in customer-facing products.”
“We believe that significant banking revenues are at risk with the emergence of non-traditional competitors, said Piercarlo Gera, global managing director of Accenture Distribution and Marketing Services. “To drive profitability, banks need to transform their business models and innovate to engage with their customers based on what these customers need and not on what banks have to sell. They will have to become the keystone in consumers’ everyday life needs, not only offering financial services, but also non-financial services through a network of business partners, so they can increase customer interactions and better-suited cross-selling opportunities. We co-founded this awards program to bring some of these customer-relationship innovations to light.”
“We warmly congratulate the winners of this inaugural award,” said Juan Pedro Moreno, global managing director of Accenture’s banking industry practice. “These projects represent the vanguard of real world service innovations in retail banking, and they offer a model for institutions looking to carve out their future competitive positions as this industry rapidly evolves into the digital world.”
