New technologies and innovation

The IT challenges associated with the continuation of the remote or hybrid working model and the increased exploitation of remote distribution channels have accelerated the digital transformation, automation and robotisation processes of banking institutions.

At Santander Bank Polska, we believe that innovation comes from customer obsession. Every day we improve and digitise our processes to provide even higher quality services and products.

Innovations for retail customers launched in 2021

Ultimately, our customers will have the whole bank in their pockets – available anywhere, anytime. They will receive 100% relevant offers i.e. helpful, welcome and on time. We aim to increase self-service and digital sales.

Selected new developments and improvements in our processes and products:

• Biometric payment confirmation in mobile authentication.
• Vertical eco-cards with blind notch as part of One Card for One Europe.
• Contactless BLIK payments, a functionality allowing contactless payments at payment terminals (without generating and entering a code), commonly supported by terminals processing BLIK or Mastercard payments in the country and abroad.
• Remote motorway payments – Autopay, i.e. automatic collection of motorway tolls from the customer’s current account based on vehicle registration data entered into the mobile application. As at 31 December 2021, approximately 31,000 users were using the Autopay service.
• New simplified application processes for cash consolidation loans in our app and online banking.
• Co-browsing, or screen sharing (interactive online support for customers).
• My Goals service – the modern way to save easily in the app and Santander internet.
• New additional service – remote medical consultation „Telemedi.co”.

Innovations and initiatives for SME segment customers launched in 2021

• New services in Mini Firma internet – eBond, eHealth and eLeasing.
• A possibility to take out a business loan using the mobile app.
• Updating data for all organisations and legal entities by mail service in Mini Firma online banking.
• A new way of verifying identity in the process of opening a company account – a photo account.
• Santander Leasing offers a possibility to sign agreements remotely during an e-meeting: with a traditional signature (by hand) or with a qualified electronic signature (QES). The e-meeting takes place via the Hangouts Meet application and is recorded with the customer’s consent. In addition, the company has made it possible to conclude an agreement using QES on the eBOK24 customer website. This allows the customer to sign agreements anywhere, without wasting time to get to a branch and reducing paper consumption and CO₂ emissions .
• Santander Leasing has provided customers with the opportunity to enter into leasing or loan agreements with repayment security in the form of a BGK guarantee.
• We have introduced a fixed rate loan for companies.

Other high-tech projects

• From December 2021, we are offering our selected customers Call Steering (CS) – an IVR service, which is a technology that can recognise and interpret human speech. Selected customers who are calling us no longer need to use the phone keypad to connect with an advisor. The voiceover asks the customer what they would like to talk about – and based on their response, recognises the type of subject matter and connects them to the appropriate advisor, reducing the need for agent-assisted switchovers. Analyses have shown us that the effectiveness of identifying the subject matter of the customer’s call is as high as 90%.We conducted a survey among customers using the service. Customers perceive the solution as innovative because it saves time and is convenient. It was pointed out that the CS solution is friendly to people with disabilities and the elderly.
• We implemented the GTS (One Trade) platform for comprehensive handling of international payments. This is the first banking platform of this kind in Poland – a type of international electronic banking service that provides companies with a simple and efficient way to manage foreign trade finance products.
  This world, hitherto accessible to a small group of large corporations, is now to be opened up and made easy to understand to small and medium-sized companies, together with the wealth of products and services offered to companies by the Santander Group worldwide. It is the first banking platform of this category in Poland. Its main advantages are:
  • integration – global overview of all current accounts in any currency, information from different countries easily available in one place,
  • access to information – monitoring all international transactions with full transparency,
  • ease of management – possible consolidation of the account and control of international payments and cash flows.
• We continued the AccelUp Acceleration Programme implemented jointly with the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development. It is based on intensive cooperation between mature start-ups offering ready-to-implement solutions whose innovative product or service solutions can be useful to satisfy the identified needs of our bank.Start-ups receive support of up to PLN 200,000 and 100 hours of consultancy services in order to adapt the solution to the bank’s needs and validate it in near-real conditions. The aim of the Programme is to commercially implement the technologies of selected start-ups that successfully pass the pilot stage and then scale them up within the Santander Group.In 2021, thanks to the cooperation within AccelUP (Round III) with Loyalty Tool, we launched an external loyalty platform with partner offers collected for our customers, e.g. Booking.com, Uber Eats, Orange, Allegro, eObuwie.pl. We used the simplest and safest discount code mechanism to implement, not requiring the exchange of customer data with bankujzrabatami.pl operator. In 2022, we will continue with AccelUp and implement further solutions developed as part of the project.