Raiffeisen CEO Herbert Stepic
has told RBI that the launch of the bank’s online
banking subsidiary, Zuno, in Slovakia in December will be followed
by the Czech Republic in 2011 and later in Hungary and Poland.
Stepic said the bank decided to
roll out an online bank when asset liquidity began to decline with
the onset of the financial crisis.
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“We decided in 2008 to launch an
online bank because we saw a rising demand and market for online
banking,” Stepic said.
“We have had several years of
experience of playing the field – because we had developed direct
banking in Slovakia in the 1990s and were one of the first banks in
CEE to develop online banking, but it was not through a direct
online banking arm,”
Zuno launched in Slovakia on 6
December 2010.
“The next country will be the Czech
Republic in 2011, followed by Hungary and Poland,” Stepic
added.
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By GlobalData“We have started preparations [in
all three countries] and have got regulatory approval from the
Czech Republic. We expect to go live with Zuno this year and are
already working intensively on the IT applications.”
“Our motto is, ‘Zuno – less bank,
more life’. We want to be a bank that can offer customers a very
quick way of dealing with their banking needs. We do not want to
waste their time. [Zuno] is for the young, urban, modern people of
CEE.
“What we want to achieve with the
direct banking concept is to offer customers a current account,
enabling them to make transactions from home and make deposits.
“Besides our brick and mortar
concept, we want to establish an ideal business platform that can
help us generate more liquidity.
“If we can generate more deposits
with Zuno, we can hedge the whole group.”
Stepic added that the bank had
already employed people for its Zuno unit in Poland and Hungary,
but would not be drawn on specifying a date on which the bank would
go live in Poland and Hungary.
The Czech National Bank approved
the operation of Zuno in June 2010 and the unit has already filled
key positions since its legal establishment in August last
year.
In Poland, Zuno Bank was
established in September 2010 and the bank is currently developing
its IT systems.
In Hungary, a general manager was employed to commence the
recruitment process.
See also:
CEO
Stepic outlines Polish ambitions
