Volkswagen Bank direct expands e-banking portfolio

Volkswagen Bank direct (VBd), one of the three main Internet banks in Poland, has recently widened its offer by introducing a new current account named Konto e-direct and launched its advertising campaign. The budget for this operation stands at zl. 2 million and the objective is to attract as many new clients as possible. The campaign was launched on October 14 and will run until the end of November. The strategy and campaign were both the brainchild of Grey Worldwide Warszawa, while media house HMS Carat was engaged to do the planning and buying of advertising media. "The campaign is aimed at our potential clients, whom we see not only as young, but also middle-aged, people," said Ewa Boguszewska, the head of VBd's marketing department. In contrast to previous campaigns, the company decided to lower the income criteria of potential clients from zl. 3,000 to zl. 1,500 - zl. 2,000. The campaign is to cover press and outdoor media as well as the Internet. VBd's direct competitors include two other Internet banks, namely mBank and Inteligo. mBank has already managed to open over 310,000 accounts with deposits of around zl. 1.55 billion while Inteligo has acquired around 170,000 customers with approximately zl. 400 million in deposits. In September this year Inteligo was acquired from its previous owner, Bankgesellschaft Berlin, by Poland's largest retail bank, PKO BP. (Media i Marketing, p. 23) A.K.