Prestigious award of The Banker magazine for 2019
Privredna banka Zagreb d.d. (PBZ), a member of Intesa Sanpaolo Group, has been named Bank of the Year in Croatia – by the renowned financial magazine The Banker (a publication from the Financial Times).
Dinko Lucić, president of the Management Board, received the award on behalf of PBZ at The Banker’s Bank of the Year Awards 2019 ceremony held in London: “We are extremely proud of this prestigious international award that is regarded as the industry standard for banking excellence. My fundamental belief is that people make the difference. Today, many believe that technology is by far the most important. Technology is important, but at the end of the day the best technology can be bought. Motivated, well-trained, committed and positively oriented teams are what money can’t buy. It takes full devotion, skill, time and belief to create them. Once you’ve done it, competition stays behind” said Lucić.
A wide range of criteria was taken into consideration for this prestigious award. Banks had to demonstrate not only the resilience of their balance sheets and good financial indicators, but also success in the areas such as the overall strategy, innovation, and achievements in development and availability of banking products and services through multichannel platforms, and their actions promoting financial inclusion. This year, the global and regional winners got their awards in 138 countries.
According to its business results, Privredna banka Zagreb has consistently been at the top of the Croatian banking sector and has further strengthened its leading role in new technologies, continuously developing new and innovative products and services for retail and corporate clients and taking a significant part in the financing of the economy and development of small and medium entrepreneurship in the country. Also, considerable efforts have been invested into its transformation into a full-fledged bank for digital services. Contents and availability of digital services on all available platforms have been carefully redesigned and substantially upgraded. At PBZ more than 96 per cent of transactions are carried out electronically. The new PBZ digital banking platform is a multichannel concept of online and mobile banking with a number of innovative functionalities and the possibility of application personalisation according to the client’s needs and wishes.
Also, PBZ was the first commercial bank in Croatia to offer its clients Google Pay services back in 2018 and from this year also Apple Pay. It should be noted that PBZ is the centre of excellence for many banking areas in the Intesa Sanpaolo Group and has recently become a regional banking hub following the acquisition of majority ownership of the Intesa Sanpaolo banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia.