Poland-based mBank has rolled out a new logo to promote unification of its various brands, enhanced its service offerings and thrown itself enthusiastically into optimising the marketing opportunities offered by social media and gamification. Douglas Blakey reports
It is not yet 13 years old but Poland’s first dedicated online bank, mBank, already serves 4.2m customers in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
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A subsidiary of BRE Bank, mBank is engaged in a transformational investment programme as well as ramping up its marketing activities, all part of a drive to grow its customer base and increase revenue.
The marketing activities incorporate a brand refresh with a new logo, which will replace BRE Group’s other brands later this year.
In the first phase of rebranding, new logos feature in the offer of the existing mBank as of 4 June 2013.
The BRE and MultiBank brands will stay in use until November 2013, when the new brand will replace them. It is also at that time that the bank’s subsidiaries, including DI BRE and BRE Private Banking & Wealth Management, will be rebranded.
In June, the bank’s new logo was unveiled in different colours to differentiate the mass market retail segment, private banking and corporate sectors.
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By GlobalDataCezary Stypu?kowski, mBank CEO, says that the re-branding efforts are designed to promote flexibility and simplicity.
"The mBank brand selected from a range of brands in our portfolio is the best. It is legible, flexible and comprehensible. It still has a large potential. I do believe that it will take us forward in the long term as one of the drivers of our winning market position.
"We believe that a single strong brand will help us strengthen our position in the banking market and optimise the use of marketing budgets.
"From now on, every promotion campaign will build our image and brand awareness among all our customers irrespective of the segment addressed by our activities. Furthermore, the One Bank projects entails improved cost and organisational efficiency."
As part of its revamp, mBank has refreshed its internet banking offering.
Money transfers are among each bank customer’s most frequently used transactions and to simplify the customer experience, mBank has redesigned the service in order to limit the number of clicks to only three.
mBank is also rolling out a new service for low value money transfers executed by a text message using the recipient’s phone number or via the social network Facebook. In either case, the customer sends a transfer which the bank delivers to the recipient as a message with a link attached. The recipient clicks the link and provides the bank account number (with any bank) to credit with the transfer.
Other new online features include a Personal Financial Management Tool (PFM) that automatically categorises each customer transaction offering analysis by graphs and charts of clients’ expenditure.
A loyalty programme, dubbed Mokazje, is now offered to mBank customers with the bank negotiating discounts with partner retailers. Offers are selected automatically, on customers’ approval, based on account history.
To attract retailers to sign up, the bank has devised a business model designed to be attractive to partners, enabling them to attract mBank customers: partners pay the cost of discount only if customers actually buy their goods or services.
An additional new service offering is online chat with banking service staff 24/7 via a video or voice connection.
Gamification
As part of its drive to innovate online, increase customer engagement and differentaite itself in the market, mBank is using gamification tools as part of its refreshed internet banking service.
Mgra, Poland’s first gamification solution implemented in a bank’s online offering, helps users to discover mBank’s new tools and functions.
The game explains in what the bank describes as a user-friendly way how to use the new features and rewards users for correct completion of challenges.
The model consists of two sections. In the first educational section, customers can earn seven badges in seven categories. To win a badge in a category, users have to complete a challenge. In the second section of the game, customers can earn a badge for use of mBank’s products or services.
Another functionality of Mgra is the option of sharing information about collected badges with friends and competing with friends in the ranking of players, for instance, according to the number of touchless payments transacted.
The new online services were developed in-house by mBank and involved 200 bank employees in collaboration with technology and consultancy partners including Accenture, Artegence and Meniga.
Micha? Panowicz, new mBank project manager, adds:"It has been our ambition to design a simple, transparent, functional and enjoyable electronic banking service that offers useful features as well as friendly design including intuitive navigation and aesthetics unheard of in finance."
According to Jaros?aw Mastalerz, BRE Bank vice-president for pperations and IT: "We rely on innovative technological solutions, never before used in online banking. As a result, that the launch of the new transactional service puts us in the global lead of top innovative banks."
Products, incentives
mBank has launched a new online account offering free-of-charge ATM use combined with access to use BRE’s in MultiBank branded branches.
In June, the bank also rolled out its Premium Offer for targeted at the mass-affluent segment.
In addition to affluent-segment customer accounts, the bank is offering two premium debit cards: MasterCard Aquarius and its Visa equivalent as well as the black credit card World Elite MasterCard.
Incentives to attract account switchers to mBank include cash-back offers of up to PLN500 for opening an account and using Mokazje.
Aggresively priced loan products include promotional interest rates of 9.9% on personal loans and credit card products. The bank is also offering 1% cash-back of assets invested online in mBank’s Investment Fund Supermarket product range.
