Polish banks increasing their advantage over global competitors in online banking

The crisis caused by the coronavirus has not bypassed the banking sector. As much as 60 percent banks worldwide were forced to limit the working hours of their branches or to close them completely. Financial institutions that efficiently operate in a remote customer service model, for which the advanced use of digital channels brings measurable results, can cope with this difficult situation much better. Against this background, Polish banks perform very well. As many as five out of 13 participating were included in the group of 31 digital industry leaders, according to the study by the consulting company Deloitte.

Digital Banking Maturity 2020 is the fourth edition of the world's largest research in the field of digital banking, which this year covered 318 banks from 39 countries. The study distinguishes several categories to which the analyzed institutions belong. The term digital leaders (champions) is defined by 31 banks in the top 10 percent of statements.

In response to the crisis caused by the coronavirus in the first half of this year, Polish banks experienced a decrease in the ROE by 4.3 percentage points and a margin by 0.3 percentage points. At the same time, the cost / income ratio increased (by 2.1 pp) and the cost of risk (by 0.3 pp). The very difficult situation on the banking market is best evidenced by the decrease in sales of cash loans, reaching 33 percent.

At the same time, many banks began to introduce new digital solutions to meet the expectations of customers who were forced to use their services in changing conditions.

- Banks in Poland have been preparing retail clients for digital transformation for a long time, which was visible in the scale of digitization of our market compared to some other countries. The EU's PSD2 directive on open banking, which facilitates access to customer bills and payments, also contributed to this. COVID-19 acted as a catalyst, "Michael Wodzicki, Partner responsible for the strategy area, leader of the banking and insurance services center, Deloitte, commented.

(WBJ)