For banks to neglect the commercial and informational capabilities that digital services provide their customers is no longer acceptable in today’s world. Now more than ever, customers desire mobile banking apps, which allow users to obtain all the information on their bank’s products and services. Customers have become more self-directed and possess a youthful spirit that wishes to embrace new communication technologies that allow for a banking relationship based on simplicity, not complexity.

Given this fact, many banks have taken strides to unlock the potential of digital technologies and use them to better understand and connect with customers. In Portugal, where sales of smartphones have been growing rapidly (see Fig. 1), one bank in particular has invested heavily in digital technologies and services in order to better serve its tech-hungry clients. World Finance had the opportunity to talk with the Nelson Machado, CEO of ActivoBank, to find out how it designed its digital offering to be intuitive for customers, and how its plans to continue the development of all its online applications in the years to come.

How has the company used social media to benefit itself and its customers?
ActivoBank has a dedicated team monitoring its social media presence 24/7, with defined workflows for response approval and with some pre-approved responses to improve our response rate. This is achieved without overlooking the personalisation of every customer response to the profile of that fan and/or customer, thus stimulating conversation and dialogue. Our social media platform is managed by ActivoBank’s marketing department, with the help of specialised company ComOn.

The bank has several initiatives concerning only social networks, one of which is the 100,000 Fans Savings Deposit – created specifically for Facebook fans to celebrate the bank reaching 100,000 fans. Activobank was the first Portuguese bank to have an exclusive product for Facebook. This innovative and pioneering initiative converted fans into clients. Heading into 2015, ActivoBank had 72,961 customers and 112,762 Facebook fans.

Besides Facebook, ActivoBank is also present on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Google+. Social networks enhance the community involvement and work as a magnet, attracting new customers, as well as allowing engagement with the brand. We have social media monthly reports that include metrics like country benchmarks and the identification of key influencers, alongside overall qualitative feedback and communication suggestions for the next month. We constantly measure what content, applications and brand actions worked better and which did not, adapting and re-evaluating our social media strategy.

What is next in terms of utilising the power of digital services?
ActivoBank is a next generation digital bank. Contrary to traditional banks, it does not rely on branch offices whose presence is negligible in a day-to-day management. ActivoBank is built mainly with an online and mobile presence.

Our bank bases its strategy on new technologies and innovation and is continuously developing easy-to-use services. At the same time we’re heavily working to invest in new ways to deliver our commercial offerings, integrated across all channels, including our website, mobile site, mobile app, social media, Ponto Activo (PA), call centres and email – providing a unique offer for each customer.

How has the virtual branch improved the banking experience of your customers?
Since its inception as a new brand [in 2010], ActivoBank has marked its presence on Facebook. In May of 2015 ActivoBank became the first Portuguese bank to have a chat room on Facebook, linking fans and the bank’s commercial area.

A PA is an ActivoBank branch office and has a special design: clean, white and without leaflets or product announcements, except for a projection on the wall and a large touch screen. The virtual PA is a virtual branch office, a native app for Facebook allowing everyone to contact the bank directly. ActivoBank is the only bank in Portugal with such an app implemented. You do not need to be a customer or even a Facebook fan. It intends to recreate the experience of a PA without the hassle of going to one.

Enthusiastic about including the client in the conversion, ActivoBank wanted to review the service level for responses to questions posed by fans. When we launched our virtual PA in May, ActivoBank achieved a high percentage of customers’ resolutions in 20 minutes. This is a new experience for our customers and they are delighted. On Facebook, the virtual PA is a tab to engage new customers, promote account openings and aims to convert fans in customers.

How successful has online account opening been for growing your customer base?
The percentage of accounts opened via online channels has been increasing, which is why the bank committed to updating its online account opening in 2015. As such we have made it possible for customers to initiate the opening of an account through mobile devices. This new feature expedites the process of opening an account and the customer only addresses the PA to finalise the process, namely legal data confirmation (required by Banco de Portugal).

What wider benefits has the company gained from becoming a paperless bank?
ActivoBank is a paperless bank in its daily functioning. We have maintained for quite some time that the considerate way of providing documents to the customers is digital. However, until recently the legal impositions of Banco de Portugal required a number of signatures on physical paper whenever an account was opened. ActivoBank was the first Portuguese bank to enable accounts to be opened without paper, allowing customers to instead provide their signature on a tablet.

In this spirit, already featuring instant issuing cards and a highly efficient process that takes less than 20 minutes to complete (a benchmark in Portugal), we went on to the next step – a paperless step. In its simplest form it involved switching paper for digital documents, with the customer signing their name on an iPad, providing an efficient and environmentally friendly service to clients. This initiative is fully aligned with the strategic objectives of the bank, namely simplification of processes, innovation, customer growth and reduction of costs.

Our paperless project is much more than simply reducing paper. It is a new fully digital experience and a new way to simplify internal account processing, while enabling reduction of costs and risks concerning paper handling (i.e. lost documents, misplaced mail, etc.).

Just one month after its implementation, the project proved a complete success. More than 80 percent of all current accounts are now opened using this system, back office processes are highly simplified and the customers are delighted with the experience. This simplification also provided us with efficiency gains related to the reduction of the time spent by employees and the eradication of paper handling errors.

How much money has it saved the bank?
In each account opening at least five signatures are required from each client and about 50 pages are printed to be delivered. For five years now, ActivoBank has delivered all the legal documentation digitally, first as a CD and presently in a pen drive.

In the constant pursuit for innovation and process simplification ActivoBank led an initiative to turn this process paperless in three phases covering all account opening already implemented. The first phase centred on the Activo PA branch and consisted of collecting the compulsory signatures in a tablet, eliminating the paper. The second phase involved enabling the websites, both web and mobile, to open accounts and to collect the customer’s signatures on a laptop.

The third phase also affects the associates – independent sales representatives, people who use their personal and professional network to spread the concept and promote ActivoBank – and allows the upload of the document photos directly to the bank’s central system attaching them to the process. At the end of this semester ActivoBank will launch the updated online account pre-opening availing this technology and enabling customers to pre-open an account and upload the documents. By using this innovation the bank is saving real money by not printing approximately 100,000 document paper sheets per year – solely on the account opening process. Therefore, it is estimated that each year ActivoBank saves about €150,000.

What is on the horizon for ActivoBank?
The bank’s activity is based on five key values: simplicity, transparency, accessibility, trustworthiness and innovation. ActivoBank is in a constant pursuit to improve upon these values each time its clients interact with the bank, without being invasive in their lives, and while keeping things as simple as possible.