Petia Dimitrova: Banking in a Digital World
Petia Dimitrova, CEO and Chairperson of the Management Board of Postbank for CIO Times and its special edition “Most High-Impact Women Leaders Making a Difference, 2021“
Petia Dimitrova is Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Management Board of Postbank. Her professional career within the organization started in 2003 as Chief Financial Officer of the eight subsidiaries of Eurobank Group in Bulgaria. She became Procurator of Postbank in 2005. Ms. Dimitrova was appointed Executive Director and Member of the Management Board of DZI Bank in 2007. Following the legal merger of DZI Bank and Postbank she became Executive Director and Member of the Management Board of the merged bank. In 2012 Petia Dimitrova was appointed Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Management Board of Postbank. Under her management, in the period between 2016 – 2019, the financial institution implemented two successful deals acquiring and integrating the Bulgarian Branch of Alpha Bank first and then Piraeus Bank Bulgaria. These were yet another step in strengthening Postbank’s position as a systemic bank on the market and enhancing its role as a trendsetter and a leader in innovations.
Kindly enlighten us about the inception story of your business.
In 2021 Postbank celebrates its 30th anniversary and I am grateful to have been an active participant and contributed to the writing of most of the bank’s history in those thirty years from its establishment, especially in years characterised by complex internal and international challenges, but also years that have been marked by significant achievements. In these three decades, Postbank proved itself as one of the most successful banks in Bulgaria, a good partner, employer and socially responsible company. Furthermore, we established ourselves as an institution that customers trust and that offers them solutions for their future. The result of this shared trust is that we are third in terms of loan portfolio and the fourth largest bank in Bulgaria in terms of assets and deposits, with a market share of more than 10%, with around 200 branches across the country and more than 100 awards won for our digital innovations and products, services and social responsibility policy. This would not have been possible without the efforts of our entire team. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all my colleagues, our customers, shareholders and the strong international group to which we belong.
What are the various products and services offered by your enterprise, and how are they unique or different from the existing products in the market?
We offered our customers our unique new generation mobile wallet (ONE Wallet) with which customers can use a wide range of banking services through their phones. They can practically have instant contactless access to main banking services as they transfer their physical wallet into their mobile phone. They can add all their cards in their new wallet and freely and efficiently manage them thanks to the rich range of functionalities set in the app. Some of them include contactless POS payments through the phone, managing cards in the mobile wallet by setting limits for different channels (POS, ATM, online payments), opportunities for adding loyalty cards from various merchants, discount vouchers for partners and many more. Our customers have active and flexible control over their funds 24/7, which is certainly a convenience nowadays. This is how ONE Wallet became an irreplaceable application in everyday payments for each of us.
Another major innovation we carried out at Postbank were our, unique for the market, self-service zones that were immediately recognised as a preferred alternative to banking at a counter. Thanks to the intuitive devices in these zones, customers can easily and quickly conduct a large number of key banking transactions themselves after identifying themselves with their debit or credit card, with no need for prior registration for the bank’s online banking. Digital zones are already functioning in 75 branches in 32 towns across the country and we will be unveiling more locations and upgrading the service.
In a highly consumer-oriented market, how much importance do you pay to quality and authenticity?
Our customers’ needs are of greatest importance to us, and we will therefore continue offering new solutions for managing their finances. One of our main goals in this process is to create high quality products providing them with the necessary security of the investment.
Excellent customer experience remains a priority and consumers expect and require us to support their plans even faster and via the most convenient channel – the digital one. Following the increasingly active use of digital channels by the bank’s customers, the total share of transactions carried out online on an annual basis reached 78% at the end of 2020 versus 22% carried out in a branch. The growing trend in developing the bank’s digital channels is also confirmed by usage data on an annual basis with the most significant increase being in the use of the m-Postbank mobile app.
Our clients want a personal approach – they want to have access to their money at any time anywhere, to receive a personally developed offer and to feel special. We strive to know our customers as best as possible and offer them personalized services and products based on their behavior and preferences.
Do you believe there is a winning formula for becoming a successful entrepreneur? What is yours? Mention some awards and recognitions received by your company.
I truly believe it is the entire team of the bank that stands behind all the achievements I mentioned above. Therefore, we are definitely proud that they were highly esteemed by the prestigious World Finance Digital Banking Awards 2020 competition of the trusted World Finance Magazine. The awards are in the Best Consumer Digital Banks, Bulgaria and Best Mobile Banking Apps, Bulgaria categories. And for the fourth year in a row in the same prestigious competition, Postbank won in the Best Retail Bank-2021, Bulgaria category.
In 2021, the wreath of these achievements came with the award in the Efficiency category of the annual awards of the Bank of the Year Association. It is extremely important to us as efficiency is one of the most significant and leading factors in the banking sector and in business as a whole. This recognition will motivate us to continue ahead reaching new highs.
The market is extremely volatile, what is the current scenario of the industry you are involved in? Where do you think we are heading towards as an economy?
No two crises are the same which was once again proven in the last year and a half. The pandemic quickly paralyzed the societies all over the world and threatened the world economy with the prospects of a long and deep recession. However, lessons from the past have been learned well. This time the governments, the central banks and the regulators acted decisively to support the economies in a timely manner, avoiding a further deepening of the crisis.
Now, we are facing another problem – the recovery is not uniform across the globe which is causing the volatility in the markets that you mentioned. In some countries the economies are back on track, demand is booming, but the logistics networks cannot catch up. The fact that some countries are still battling the pandemic is also a major risk factor.
A cause of concern this time is something that we have all but forgotten in the last years – the inflation. Managing the inflation, withdrawing the stimulus measures while not hurting the economic recovery will be a major challenge for the governments and the central banks.
The banking sector will also play an important part in this process. We have amassed a lot of new deposits which have to be utilized in some way. So we have to find the careful balance between lending too much which will exacerbate inflationary trends and lending too little which will choke the economies.
Where do you see your enterprise in the next ten years?
The pandemic taught us how difficult it is to predict the future. No one can say what banks will look like in 10 years’ time, but assumptions can be made based on the emerging trends. Thanks to big data and artificial intelligence opportunities, the bank of the future will know its clients really well and will offer them extremely personalized services and products based on their behavior and preferences. Banking will be possible practically everywhere, through any connected device in our smart homes, however we choose – via voice activated applications, biometry and more novelties which are still to be invented. User experience itself will be as intuitive as possible thanks to the augmented and virtual reality.
We are currently focused on instant payments which allow for funds to be transferred to a counterparty in seconds. Postbank together with BORICA – the company providing the technology infrastructure of the Bulgarian payment industry, has been working hard to implement this product and we expect it to be available to our customers by the end of the year. Banks are starting to pay much more attention to online customer experience and are introducing entirely digital processes.
The important topic of Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) is actively making its way on public agenda with specific actions being undertaken and advancements in the three fields of ESG, notably environmental protection, social responsibility and good corporate governance among various companies and investors in Bulgaria, being assessed.
Postbank, as one of the leading banks on the Bulgarian market, will continue to implement a long-term sustainable social policy in all these directions through our internal policies and rules in making investment decisions, taking into account the factors of socially responsible investing and the level of commitment of investors regarding the risks for such investments in companies within their portfolio.
Long-term social responsibility policies at the bank are implemented via sustainable practices applied in the various processes and leading to real actions in protecting the environment and lowering the carbon footprint.
They entirely reflect the mission and values Postbank will still abide by in 2022 as we continue offering innovative digital solutions, developing various green initiatives and contributing to achievements in education.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Other than in innovative digital products and services, we at Postbank continue focusing our efforts and funds in support of projects with real added value for society and we believe that one of the great effects will be building self-awareness which will change our life for the better. For the third year in a row, we are participating in the Dare to Scale project – a four-month growth program aimed at entrepreneurs and businesses that have already passed the early stages of development and are expanding their activities. The program is organized by the Bulgarian office of the global business network Endeavor, whose main partner is Postbank. It is extremely important for us to be part of this process, to encourage the budding entrepreneurs and to support the ambitions of companies that are looking to scale their business and thus change the whole ecosystem. I am convinced that this is the attitude that is taking us forward. The times we live in provide us with plenty of challenges, but they will also measure our resilience and our ability to learn and grow. Postbank will share with entrepreneurs its expertise and experience in order to support them in the most important stage of their business development and become part of their growth. We will look for the potential of successful partnerships that allow us to innovate and improve the capabilities of the ecosystem. For us, this is an investment in the future and a chance to be part of the change that takes us forward.
So, I wish the entrepreneurs to have the same professional freedom I have at Postbank so that they can develop their creativity, inventive spirit and diversity and be able to give way to their brave ideas. These are among the most important things I myself as a manager rely on and believe they work unfailingly.
