Eight banks from Asia, Europe and South America are winners of the seventh annual Efma-Accenture Customer Insight & Growth Banking Innovation Awards, which recognize innovative projects in retail banking distribution and marketing.
Showcasing the best examples of innovation, this year’s competition attracted more than 600 innovations from 235 institutions in 70 countries. The awards were presented today at an awards ceremony streamed live from the Pullman Hotel Centre - Bercy in Paris.
The winners of the 2019 Customer Insight & Growth Banking Innovation Awards are:
• CaixaBank (Spain) – winner of the Analytics & AI award for its Chatbot “Neo.” Developed using artificial intelligence (AI), the personal customer service assistant is available 24/7 to provide support across business processes in three different languages.
Silver went to Akbank (Turkey) and bronze to Isbank (Turkey).
• Banco Bradesco (Brazil) – winner of the Digital Marketing award for its End-of-Year Firefly Campaign that produced a video promoting diversity and inclusion. The video is the most viewed commercial in YouTube Brazil history.
Silver went to CaixaBank (Spain) and bronze to Frankfurter Sparkasse (Germany).
• KEB Hana Bank (South Korea) – winner of the Offering Innovation award for its Global Loyalty Network, a payment hub that links major financial institutions, retailers and loyalty point operators to a unique global network that enables users to freely pay and transfer digital assets to one another.
Silver went to KBC (Belgium) and bronze to BMO Bank of Montreal (Canada).
• Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri Bank) (Thailand) – winner of the Phygital Distribution award for Krungsri Digital Homeloan, which provides a better customer experience during the mortgage journey using “Di-Sales” and connecting it with the home buying journey using “Krungsri Homeloan Connect.”
Silver went to Garanti BBVA (Turkey) and bronze to Maybank (Malaysia).
• BNP Paribas Corporate & Institutional Banking (United Kingdom) – winner of the Social, Sustainable, & Responsible Banking award for ClimateSeed, a digital voluntary carbon-offsetting platform that helps connect organizations with tangible sustainable projects to cut carbon emissions and support the achievement of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
Silver went to PKO Bank Polski (Poland) and bronze to Commonwealth Bank (Australia).
• Alior Bank (Poland) – winner of the Workforce Experience award for Smartphonization – a mobile way of working. Alior Bank has given its employees safe smartphones with a preinstalled set of applications to move them to the digital world and enable the bank’s digital transformation.
Silver went to FNB (South Africa) and bronze to CSOB (Czech Republic).
• illimity bank (Italy) – winner of the Neobanks & Specialized players award for illimity – The New Paradigm Bank. Relying on the best information technology, the bank provides new levels of quality, service and efficiency for three underserved markets in Italy: small and medium-sized enterprises, corporate non-performing loans, and direct banking.
Silver went to Santander (Spain) and bronze to Discovery (South Africa).
• DBS Bank (Singapore) – named winner of the Global Innovator Award for several innovative initiatives and products in the last year, including a data heroes’ program to equip employees with big data and data analytics skills; an end-to-end cross-border blockchain trading platform; and POSB Smart Buddy, the world’s first in-school wearable tech savings and payments program. DBS Bank’s institution-wide embrace of digitalization has led to embedding innovation throughout the bank.
Silver went to Santander (Spain) and bronze to CaixaBank (Spain).
The winners were selected by a panel of judges comprising senior retail bankers from around the world and by Efma members and non-members from retail institutions who voted online. Each entry was assessed using three criteria: its originality; its strategic capacity to generate long-term competitive edge and return on investment; and its adaptability for use in other markets and countries.
“These innovations are proof of banking leaders transforming the retail financial services landscape and reshaping the future of the industry,” said Vincent Bastid, Efma’s CEO. “Every year it is exciting to see innovative solutions developed around the world. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners for their achievements.”
Piercarlo Gera, who leads Accenture’s Customer Insight & Growth for Financial Services practice globally, said, “The future of banking is in the platform economy and these awards showcase banks and their journey to transforming their business models, with retail banks rising to the challenge of competition from non-traditional providers. The geographic range of this year’s winners indicates that innovation knows no boundaries, as competition intensifies across all markets.”
