Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2019
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In 2019, we concentrated on developing products and services for all retail customers. Our focus was to develop the offer for the youngest customers, salaried customers and foreigners.

We continued our strategy based on the freedom to adjust our offer to the individual needs of each client, hence our flagship product is still Account As I Want It. Our priority is to build positive banking experience for all customer groups and each customer individually.

Progress achieved in 2019

  • Excellent customer service – NPS. Customers were satisfied with the simplified processes and the fact that our bank listened to their voice.
  • We are the only bank in Poland that provides services in Ukrainian and Belarusian.

Since 2019, our customers (non-residents) from abroad can freely use the Santander mobile application in Ukrainian and Russian. New versions of the application have appeared in Google Play and AppStore. The Ukrainians are the biggest population among the foreign clients of Santander Bank Polska. Currently, we serve about 180 thousand foreigners, of whom over 105 thousand are Ukrainian citizens, followed by Belarusians and Germans.

  • We provide a special lease offer for female entrepreneurs – a project financed from funds obtained from the IFC (International Finance Corporation, International Finance Corporation).
  • We continue the project of free card terminals for SME clients under the Cashless Poland programme.
  • We have simplified communication with customers.
  • More friendly communication about changes in the Schedule of Fees and Charges and regulations

    In October 2019, we completed the distribution of the new Schedule of Fees and Charges and regulations. It is much more customer friendly than the previous communication.

    We informed 4.5 million customers about beneficial changes in the fees and charges, including 2.5 million through traditional mail and 2 million through the Electronic Communication Channel (ECC).

    The cover letter was one of the first communications prepared in cooperation with the linguist Tomek Piekot. The text is clear, legible and written without the use of the banking jargon. The letter was personalised – addressed by name to each client. In the correspondence, we provided the information how long the customer has been using  the banking products of Santander Bank Polska and thanked them for the time spent together with us. We adapted the correspondence in the ECC to the needs of people with visual impairments. This is the first step towards providing customers with accessible documents.

Barrier-free service is a concept underlying specific actions that we implement for customers with different needs. In 2019, in accordance with the requirements of the “Act on Ensuring Accessibility for Persons with Special Needs“ of 19 July 2019, the bank introduced the possibility to request for the so-called “accessible documents“ provided for in the Act (non-personalised contract templates, regulations or the Schedule of Fees and Charges), either remotely or at branches. In addition, we have created a gradually supplemented repository of available documents in electronic formats – an audio recording or a video recording in the Polish Sign Language (PJM). Additionally, the bank offers the possibility to apply for a document in the format of an accessible PDF with internal, invisible tags. This means that they can be read by a person with special needs using commonly available screen reader technology which is also used at home.

Marta Walaszczyk-Szymańska
Manager of the Barrier-free Banking programme

Goals for increasing the accessibility of our bank:

  • Simplification of processes for customers and digitization.
  • Increasing the possibility of purchasing individual products in remote channels, e.g. accounts for children under 18 years old.
  • Guaranteed access to high quality financial products and services – further development of the Barrier-Free Banking programme.
  • Planned launches of other products and services tailored to the needs of different target groups;
  • Continuous promotion of and engagement in financial education.
  • The restructuring/after-sales process for customers having difficulty with debt service in online and mobile channels.