Hansabank Estonia: An NCR Case Study

The customer

Hansabank began life in Estonia during the early 1990s. As Soviet power waned and a market economy emerged Hansabank prospered. Today it is the largest financial institution operating in the Baltic States with 9,500 employees and 298 branches spread across Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, with 92 in Estonia alone. As well as its branch network Hansabank operates a fleet of some 552 ATMs located in branches, petrol stations and malls across Estonia. In 2005 Swedbank purchased 100% of Hansabank.

Account services are an important part of Hansabank’s offer. Its customers are comfortable using ATMs for automated bill payments, making predefined payments, purchasing mobile phone top-ups, checking their account balances and changing their PIN (something Hansabank customers have to do on a regular basis). Maintaining and improving this level of service was, therefore, an important consideration.

The challenge

Given the popularity of self-service ATM account services in Estonia, coupled with their ongoing maintenance issues, Hansabank needed a new generation of Account Services Terminals that combined high reliability and ease of maintenance with a straightforward interface, large screen and high-quality printing.

Of course taking on the challenge of installing a new technology solution was about more than just solving the problem of spare parts. Hansabank was also keen to both reduce costs and, importantly, offer its customers a higher level of service. In particular, Hansabank wanted to improve the reliability and quality of its self-service channel’s statement printing functionality.

An additional challenge was customer perception. Customers were comfortable using the older generation of ATMs, so Hansabank was naturally concerned they might reject any new technology. Whatever self-service device Hansabank chose had to be easy to use and sufficiently similar to its older ATMs to avoid any customer complaints.

Hansabank was also aware it could make their branches work harder through the introduction of advanced account services ATMs. Its aim was, therefore, to increase customer satisfaction by making branches more relevant to customers and more profitable and efficient for its business.