SEATTLE — Three companies were awarded 2014 Bank Innovation Awards yesterday here for their noteworthy innovation accomplishments over the last 12 months.
The awards, which celebrate innovative successes in the financial services sector, are presented annually at our Bank Innovation conference to financial services companies that went beyond the obvious to produce great financial results or innovations of particular note, either in product, method, message or means.
The winners are Citi Latin America, mBank and US Bank.
CITIGROUP
Citigroup received the first award for its Citi Mobile Collect, a mobile corporate collections tool developed by its Citi Latin America unit. Citi Mobile Collect provides a safe and efficient alternative to cash, increased transaction control, audit trail and cost processing, and has the potential to improve working capital and the financial supply chain.
In Latin American economies, perishable goods are generally distributed directly from manufacturers to retailers, rather than through a distributor. Now, the vast majority of sales by these retailers, not surprisingly, is done in cash, which adds a whole raft of challenges, such as driver security, employee fraud and the cost of deposits. Citi Latin America aimed to solve this particularly local problem with a mobile payments app that would allow for the replacement of cash within this sector of the economy. The app was not developed just by Citi, but through a partnership with Banco Adopem in the Dominican Republic. The result was called Citi Mobile Collect. (OK, so not the most creative name.)
The solution is a closed-loop settlement system between the merchant’s account and Citi’s client bank account all using a mobile phone to arrange the transaction specifically built for the Latin America consumer goods market. In the Dominican Republic, for example, the number of mobile phones registered exceeds its population, making the solution all the more crucial.
What we find admirable about this is how localized, yet valuable, is this solution. It is also admirable that Citi took this need not by going about it on its own, but rather by bringing other local parties into the mix. For these reasons, we are pleased to present Citigroup with a Bank Innovation award.
MBANK
mBank was presented a Bank Innovation Award for delivering 200 innovative features grouped across 10 major innovation areas in its 2013 digital banking transformation.
When you think of banking innovation, Poland may not be the first country to come to mind. But it turns our next winner comes out of Poland. Until November 2013, mBank served as the direct bank of BRE Bank, which is owned by Commerzbank of Germany. BRE Bank has since changed its name to mBank.
mBank was actually launched in 2000, making it one of the earliest online direct banks. Around 4 million people in Poland use mBank. About 39 million people live in Poland. mBank is currently the third-largest bank in that country.
So why are we singling out mBank? In June 2013, mBank delivered 200 innovative features grouped across 10 major innovation areas. One key innovation was divorcing the new platform from using tables, which constrains a bank’s ability to create a more adaptable banking experience. The project to develop this new platform — which includes a smart transaction search engine with Google-like experience — took just 14 months to develop from a “clean sheet of paper.” mBank spent about $30 million on the project and about 160 bank employees worked on it, supported by about 90 vendors, most notably Accenture, Artegence, Meniga, and Software Mind.
One data point that highlights the results of the IT project:
- mBank sold 12.4 products per 1,000 log-ins through the new platfor in December 2013, compared to 0.5 on the old online banking platform.
So successful was the project that it is leading mBank to look outside Poland. It will soon enter the Czech Republic and Slovakia. A project of this scope — and executed in Poland, which is not known for its innovative technology — could easily have turned into a train wreck. But mBank’s transformation project was the exact opposite, and we are pleased to present mBank with Bank Innovation award as a result.
US BANK
Finally, US Bank was presented an award for its successful development of photo banking.
True, US Bank is not the only bank offering banking services that use a smartphone’s camera. US Bank didn’t even invent the technology that allows for banking services that use a smartphone’s camera.
What US Bank did realize, and realize it first, however, was that remote deposit capture was not just another way to deposit checks. The Minneapolis bank, the nation’s sixth-largest bank, recognized that RDC was just one component of a new type of banking, which US Bank dubbed photo banking.
US Bank was the first major bank out of the gate to launch mobile photo bill pay last year. And then last October US Bank was the first bank to offer mobile photo balance transfer, its third function using a smartphone camera. We have no doubt that that will not be the bank’s last.
We recognized US Bank with a Bank Innovation award for its contribution to its customers and to the innovation community broadly through its photo banking initiatives.
This is our second annual Bank Innovation Awards, and like in our inaugural year, our 2014 winners exemplify the best of this dynamic industry. We offer our hearty congratulations to all the 2014 winners.