At the end of 2019, the average percentage of newly acquired customers in banks in the CEE region via digital channels amounted to approximately 20%. If compared with some specialized FinTechs (offering online factoring or invoice finance to SMEs), this percentage was close to 80%. According to 2Q 2020 results published by banks in the region, customer acquisition via remote channels increased by up to 50%. Some banks even reported 100% of SME customer acquisition in remote channels (like ING Bank in Poland), while other banks announced that they had halted sales campaigns that required customers to visit branches (Santander Bank Polska).
In general, over the last 3-4 years, bank strategies for Micro and SME segments mainly focused on the remote end-to-end process for the Micro segment and Sales via RMs to the SME segment, as well as providing them with RMs digital tools (CRM with advanced analytics) to better understand the needs of the customer and personalize the offer.
As the digital sales process of financial products to the SME segment is becoming more and more relevant, we decided to start the annual reviews of digital customer acquisition processes with this study and publish some first examples of such implementations in the CEE region.
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