STAYING COMPETITIVE: Sonia in Miri for her first stop in Sarawak to deliver Standard Chartered Bank’s digitisation strategy locally.
MIRI: Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia experienced a tangible growth in the number of its active customers by over 700,000 over the last 12 months through its new digital strategy of online banking.
According to its country head of Consumer Banking Sonia Wedrychowicz-Horbatowska, the growth is important for the bank to stay competitive.
“Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia made a shift to a more digital approach to expand its market share which gives focus on Generation Y, with the emphasis to influence customers to use Internet and mobile banking as well as ATMs for basic transactions,” she said during a briefing with the media here yesterday afternoon.
She was in Miri for her first stop in Sarawak to deliver the bank’s digitisation strategy locally before proceeding to Bintulu, Sibu and Kuching for the same purpose.
Sonia revealed that as of April this year, a whopping 60 per cent of the bank’s customers had subscribed as online banking customers.
She added that the bank is gradually increasing the pace of its digital campaign after recently changing the bank’s website to a modern interactive outlook.
She also said the bank will launch its mobile banking application on Apple and Android platform by the end of this month, which will be known as Breeze Mobile Demo, an application that will function on smart phones, as well as Breeze Balance, a simple next generation SMS banking.
“With its aspiration to become the main digital bank in Malaysia, the bank focuses on customer experience and will leverage digital technologies to provide a coherent multi-channel experience for customers to conduct transactions anywhere at any time,” she added.
Sonia told the press that banking is and has always been a service where speed, simplicity and convenience are of the essence, with customers getting more tech-savvy and mobile and preferring banking that not only meets their financial needs but anticipates them.
“Digital banking channels present a massive opportunity for us to grow online and at the same time increase our customer base.
“Therefore, we continue to transform our business and invest for long term growth with a focus on digital technologies that we believe will shape the future of banking,” she explained.
In recognising the rise in the use of digital channels, the bank launched a new campaign designed to create awareness and encourage customers to perform their banking transactions across various channels.
“Standard Chartered is taking digitisation to the next level. We are leveraging on technology to make it more useful, intuitive and most importantly seamless.
“The bank is investing in technologies that will enhance customer interaction by making banking experiences more secure, efficient and money management simpler while complementing the rest of the banking channels and services,” Sonia added.