Turbo-accelerated expansion of Nordea’s network
2008-07-03
3 July took place a conference concerning expansion of Nordea''s network.
By the end of next year, Nordea Bank’s share of the Polish market is to grow significantly. Instrumental in this respect is to be, among other things, the completion of the biggest project in Nordea’s New European Markets, called the Turbo Project, consisting in the establishment of 150 new offices in 3 years. Today, Nordea’s network has grown to 100 locations.
Acquisitions in the Polish banking sector are becoming increasingly expensive, which makes them less and less profitable. An alternative development path is through organic growth, enabling to adjust the pace to the investment capacity and to make any necessary corrections along the way, which in turn mitigates the risk. It is this model of development that Nordea selected. In late 2006, the bank decided about the opening of 150 modern outlets in 3 years.
- “Network expansion is now one of our priorities. Research shows that the location is for most customers the key criterion for choosing a bank”, said Włodzimierz Kiciński, president of Nordea Bank Polska.
Turbo is the name of the project of creation of a network of new-model branch offices. All the new branch offices enable the customer to use multi-channel access to the services, 24 hours a day. This done through deposit-capable cash machines, information terminals with e-banking access and the phone, by which one can place a term deposit or check the account balance.
At present as many as 60 such outlets are operational, the bank has just opened its 100th branch office. By the end of 2009, there are to be 150 new offices. This is three times as much as at the end of 2006, when Nordea had only 42 branch offices. To open one branch office costs between PLN 0.5 and 1.0 million.
“We want to reach the appropriate critical mass in the places we selected. We have placed our outlets on city centres, as well as in living districts. To be close to the customer means more that to ensure him services at the traditional outlet, that is why we promote the 24hours zone with full access to the bank and we try to pursue them to use the electronic channels.”- adds the bank’s president.
With a view to expansion, the bank targeted 5 largest Polish agglomerations: Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw and Krakow. In Warsaw alone, Nordea intends to open more than 50 new branch offices.
The market is to be cornered with a modern product range, including such winners as the Nordea Spektrum account – enabling free withdrawals from cash machines everywhere in Poland, the mortgage loan denominated in CHF and PLN, spoken highly of by independent sources, and also savings and bancassurance products, with the best-selling Nordea Profit Plus policy or structured products.
As the number of branch offices grows, so does headcount. In the Turbo Project, 800 people will find jobs, 750 as front-office staff, directly serving customers. New staff is being trained intensively in the educational centre in Łódź.
