With the integration of Idea into the BT Group completed and the recent announcement of the new CEO of Idea::Bank, Gabriela Nistor, the natural question is: What are Banca Transilvania’s plans for Idea::Bank? BT’s plan is to build Romania’s first digital bank around Idea::Bank, aimed at customers who prefer remote banking.

We recently accepted Ziarul Financiar’s invitation to join ZF Live for an exclusive interview on this topic.

When the first Idea product will launch and for whom, what we’ll do next, and what other plans we have for Idea::Bank — you’ll find all the answers in this video interview and in the summary below.

Gabriela Nistor, Deputy CEO of Banca Transilvania, incoming CEO of Idea::Bank:

Opportunity

• A month ago I wouldn’t have imagined this. I believe I was offered this role thanks to the projects and results I’ve delivered over time and because we have a very strong retail team at Banca Transilvania. After receiving the proposal, it felt like I couldn’t miss out on building the first digital bank made in Romania, and I’m truly honored by the challenge.
• I’ve been a Deputy CEO at BT for 10 years, but my story at the bank started 27 years ago. I began at the counter and went through several roles — from credit officer to marketing, becoming BT’s first marketing director. Later, in 2000, I set up BT’s entire cards business — which has become a real success story — and then I took over retail banking, where we’ve continued to grow over time.

Getting started

• Idea::Bank is starting out with investment from Banca Transilvania. Going forward, it needs a critical mass of customers to support the business.
• We want to build from scratch the full infrastructure of a digital bank, including core banking, processing and more.
• There are several models of digital banks. I don’t think the platform itself or what you build is necessarily the differentiator; it’s the mix of the platform you create, how you interact with customers and whom you target.

Products

• Within 9 – 12 months we need to launch a core product for retail customers. The difference has to come from positioning; we need to bring something different.
• Mortgages are not on the roadmap for now. For the moment it’s consumer loans, current accounts and debit cards.

The market is ready

• Retail customers have changed a lot. With the pandemic, people suddenly started shopping online. There was also a fear of cash during the pandemic, so they quickly moved online and got used to it. For example, in the first stage of the pandemic, half a million BT customers made the first online transaction of their lives. A good share of them kept that behavior. This is the direction we’ll go.

Going digital

• The digital bank concept eliminates the physical network, but we will keep the call center and its team.

The team:

• The Idea management team is in place; we still need to add people on the tech side. We have bankers; we’ll need IT specialists.
• We have a team from Idea::Bank in Bucharest of over 100 people, who will serve all customers and with whom we can get started.

Plans

• Over the next 3 – 5 years, investments will amount to several tens of millions of euros, in different stages.
• The bank’s name will change because the current brand belongs to the Polish group Getin Holding.

Integrating Idea into the BT Group involved 250 people from Banca Transilvania and Idea::Bank, as well as 26,000 new customers, 80,000 products transferred (accounts, loans and cards) and 7 Idea locations converted into BT branches.

We did it again!