Dutch bank, ABN Amro has announced a new feature that it hopes will appeal to millennials and encourage this demographic to stay with traditional financial institutions over the growing number of new entrants to the retail banking space. The feature, will allow prospective customers to sign up for a new account with just their smartphone and only require users to submit photos of the consumer’s identity card or passport, a selfie picture and a token payment of €0.01 using the popular iDEAL payment serv
Commenting on the move, Managing director of retail banking Frans Woelders said,
“We see smartphone use among our customers grow by the day. To accommodate them, we now offer the opportunity to sign up with just your phone. Becoming a customer using a mobile device is quick and efficient, as you can do so without visiting a bank branch.”
While account opening from mobile devices is not particularly new, it quickly is becoming a feature that financial institutions must have in order to cater to customers not inclined to visit bank branches. Furthermore, with the number of rival new entrants growing (many digital banks include this feature standard) the move by ABN Amro can be viewed as both an offensive and defensive strategy.
Overview Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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