Bankinter may only rank as the sixth-largest Spanish
bank by assets but it punches above its weight. It was the first
internet Bank in Spain and the first to offer mobile banking. And
as Nicolas Moya tells Douglas Blakey, the success of its m-banking
channel is now reflected in the bottom line
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A
large number of retail banks lay claim to be truly innovative.
Spain’s Bankinter has stronger claims in this regard than most.
Recognising that it could never compete with rivals such as la
Caixa, BBVA and Santander in terms of high street presence,
Bankinter has thrown itself enthusiastically into investing in the
digital channels.
In particular, it pioneered in Spain the use of alternative
channels such as telephone, internet and mobile banking, augmented
by investment in service quality.
At the heart of Bankinter’s strategy is the belief that digital
channels, such as mobile, can serve as a key differentiator for
banks as customers increasingly demand more flexible and convenient
ways to manage their various accounts.
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By GlobalDataThese customers – often young and tech-savvy – view mobile
banking as a cost-effective extension of traditional branches and
online banking. And as
Nicolas Moya, general manager of innovation at Bankinter tells
RBI, there is a strong business case to invest in
mobile banking.
“Mobile has to be viewed differently from other channels. Mobile
banking has helped us to reduce fraud and save money by reducing
calls coming through to the call centre,” says Moya.
“We can calculate how many calls we are diverting from the call
centre; it is about 20% of such calls.
“As our call centre banking service cost around €10m a year to
operate and we are diverting 20% of such calls, we are saving €2m a
year.
“For us, that is a huge annual saving.”
Adds
Moya, “We launched our mobile banking service around 18 months
before our competitors and we invested more in real terms than our
rivals.”
To date, take-up rates are hugely impressive, even though
Bankinter now charges customer to use the mobile channel.
“We have a 73% penetration rate of our customers using SMS
mobile banking. I was afraid we might lose customers when we
started to charge for the service but we slipped only 5 percentage
points from 78% once we started charging.
As for banks for whom the mobile channel is not yet so well
established, Moya strongly advices that in the early stages of
development, banks look to give value to customers.
“You need to give some services for free, such as alerts, to get
your numbers up,” says Moya.
Banks must also remember that they are not tech companies.
“Yes, develop technology but you first of all need to find out
what your customers actually want,” Moya adds.
Bankinter was also one of the first banks to use IP geolocation
technology as an anti-fraud weapon while other innovative
developments have included the launched of its own Mobile Virtual
Network Operator (MVNO) in 2007.
In late 2009, Bankinter also trialed augmented reality services
allowing mobile devices to add contextual information to the
physical image captured by handsets in real time.
2011 earnings on target
Bankinter’s channel and service strategy has helped it to
boast one of the leading cross-sell ratios among European lenders,
with around six products per person.
And in sharp contrast to the majority of its European peers, its
results for the first year to date suggest that its 2011 full year
targets are on course, driven by a rise in revenues in the third
quarter and strict cost control.
Net profit for the nine months to 30 September fell by only 1.4%
to €147m from a year ago, beating analyst forecasts.
Bankinter has the lowest bad loans ratio in the Spanish banking
sector, – 3.1% at the end of September, up only slightly from 3.04%
percent at the end of the end of the second quarter – but one-half
the sector average of 7.15%.
Bankinter is also among the strongest capitalised of the Spanish
sector; rivals Santander , BBVA and Bankia would be among those
lenders adversely affected if harsher stress tests are carried
out.
