HBR case: Internet Costumer Acquisition Strategy at Bankinter

SITUATION
Bankinter is the leading internet financial service provider in Spain even though they are a relatively small bank compared to the other big players in the banking sector. They took a chance on the upcoming opportunities that the arising internet usage within banking clients provided in the market and they were the first movers in the industry to take successful advantage of this new development. COMPLICATION

Ann Peralta, the director of the Internet network is facing the problem that she has to evaluate which channel is the most profitable for Bankinter in terms of per costumer profit earned as they had established different platforms in the internet banking with different segments of people using them. All the issues has to be resolved under the impact of the internet bubbling bursting in that moment. Money is now not easily available anymore and decisions has to be taken well done if not this could be the beginning of the end of Bankinter. Another issue is which would be the best strategy to gain profitable new costumers and make them stay. There were more and less profitable segments of costumers and they had to decide on which segment to concentrate on. SOLUTION

STRENGHTS
-Independent and small, ability to react very quick due to its structure -Experienced in the field of internet
-Well developed CRM system, high above other banks abilities -Established online system difficult to imitate
-Innovation driven, first provider of multichannel banking at a low cost
OPPORTUNITIES
-Reduce cost of client caption
-stick to the core business cutting not necessary costs and loosing businesses -CRM can provide detailed segmentation analysis
-Alliances with high trafficked portals to capture new clients as well as E-collaboration showed future potential -Introducing more cross selling products within their customer segments to level up loyalty -setting up special service for e.g. businesses costumers

WEAKNESSES
-Recent conducted Allianze program in internet damaged severely profitability -caption cost per client differ from channel to channel and can be high -Internet clients tend to switch to other banks if they see a better offer, threshold to switch is low -Completion level of application must be highly improved THREADS -Competitors are on their way copying the bankinter successful system -The pressure of constant innovation in technologies to maintain the competitive advantage is high in terms of cost and it must be covered by new clients