Video banking: the best of both worlds

OK, so video banking is not the latest trend, and a number of banks around the world have been offering it for some time now (the Polish market has been particularly prolific – think Idea Bank, Alior Bank, ING and Raiffeisen). 

It is a very important channel – as it offers actual human contact in the increasingly faceless mobile banking world and thus shouldn’t be neglected.

It combines the best of both worlds – modern technologies and human interaction.

A notable example of a video banking offering is that of another Polish bank, mBank. The bank claims to be ‘the most innovative on the market, not only in Poland’ – and this claim, as bold as it is, has its grounds.

The service is available 24x7 and is available not only to the existing customers but also for those who are thinking about becoming one. 

The bank’s staff at the other end of the line is trained to deal with selling products (including more complex queries, such as advanced investment products and lending options) as well as assisting customers in their day-to-day banking operations. Every high net-worth customer of mBank has an online specialist assigned specifically for him/her. 

Using video and audio conversations does not require any additional software to be installed. All that is needed is a computer equipped with a camera, a microphone, loudspeakers or headphones, as well as with Microsoft Silverlight, the plugin to the browser. 

mBank sees the opportunity to be able to present multimedia content on the customer screen as the main advantage of the video banking set-up. In nearly a third of the bank’s video connections, multimedia materials are being used.

Łukasz Wiktor, mBank’s customer service director, comments that a customer and a bank’s specialist can see each other during the video call, should a customer wish to do so. ‘We desired to give our clients the opportunity of having eye contact with an advisor and working on a document without the need to send it to a bank unit,’ he says. ‘It simplifies the connection and also inspires trust,’ he says.

Virtual conversations may also take the form of text chat during which an mBank's employee can pass the information and links about the offer as well as on products and services held by a client (e.g. account balance). 

Video banking by mBank: facts & figures

The bank is clocking up over 60,000 calls per month (2,000 a day).

Since the launch of the service two years ago, 360,000 people have used it, with over one million virtual calls made to date.

This accounts for 15% of all the interactions with the bank.

According to the bank’s stats, 91% of these connections have been rated by the callers as competent, 94% as friendly, 88% as useful and 83% of the problems have been solved as a result of this service.