For the 23rd year, the international financial magazine Global Finance has awarded the best digital banks. UniCredit Bulbank has been selected as Bulgaria's best digital bank for 2022. The winners are selected by a jury representing the global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing Infosys, and the editorial team of Global Finance gives the final evaluation.

Winning banks were selected based on the following criteria: strength of strategy for attracting and servicing digital customers, success in getting clients to use digital offerings, growth of digital customers, breadth of product offerings, evidence of tangible benefits gained from digital initiatives, and web/mobile site design and functionality. Category winners, such as Best User Experience (UX) Design were selected based on the relative strength and success of those web products and services.

“With the multi-year pandemic accelerating banks’ digitalization efforts, the market has witnessed a rapid evolution in electronic offerings,” said Joseph Giarraputo, founder and editorial director of Global Finance. “Those financial institutions that best introduced new and improved products and services are being honored as Global Finance’s World’s Best Digital Banks 2022.”

"We are happy that we have managed to consolidate our leadership position in the Global Finance ranking for another year. At the beginning of 2021, we completely redesigned our Bulbank Mobile application. A year later, we report highly positive trends. As of the end of July, we have almost 550 thousand active mobile users, and for the first seven months of 2022, we report a growth of more than 30% in the average monthly number of logins to the application compared to the same period in 2021. At the same time, in line with our bank digitalization strategy, we also launched this year the Omnichannel digital platform, which aims to offer innovative service through all available channels – online and mobile banking, branch network and call centre, thanks to which we provide our customers with an identical process and user experience for the most frequently used products", commented Borislav Genov, director of "Retail Banking" and member of the Management Board of UniCredit Bulbank.

With the introduction of the new daily banking plans, UniCredit Bulbank also completely changed its individual client's portfolio management model by including the service "a personal banker at your disposal" in the highest-end plan", Max". In that way, the golden clients of the bank receive thorough premium service, including an individual approach and unlimited banking products. From the beginning of 2023, the "Max" premium package will also be upgraded with the "personal banker" service. In this way, customers of the bank who have chosen the "Max" premium package receive a service that includes an individual approach and unlimited banking products.

In the past months, the bank has implemented several innovations in the digital services offered via the mobile application Bulbank Mobile and online banking Bulbank Online.   

At the end of 2021, Bulbank Mobile customers got the opportunity for SEPA payments, which allows them to order transfers to the countries of the European Economic Community. A month later, another new functionality was launched in Bulbank Mobile - transfer by phone number, through which the clients can send and receive interbank transfers via mobile number without having to fill out a bank account information.

As a result of various improvements and more payment options, the total amount of transfers through Bulbank Mobile increased by 50% in the first seven months of 2022, compared to the same period in 2021. 

Additional proof of the right direction of development of Bulbank Mobile is also the results for payments with a digital wallet, as only for the first seven months of 2022 the number of payments through the built-in digital wallet in Bulbank Mobile and Apple Pay marked a serious growth of 100% compared to the same period in 2021.

Last but not least are the implemented improvements for legal entities offered by the bank’s online banking – Bulbank Online. Only part of them are providing an ePIN to activate access to Bulbank Online; digital request for a bank reference as UniCredit Bulbank customers can request a bank reference directly from their Bulbank Online profile, and in August 2022, the newest functionality for legal entities in Bulbank Online was launched – monitoring of the financial indicators of a company and comparative analysis against five competing companies in the market. 

The UniCredit Bulbank team continues to sustainably follow its strategy of improving the customer experience and digitalization products and services, consolidating its leadership position in digital banking.   

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Additional media information:

Ekaterina Ancheva, tel +359 894 518 193 , flbufsjob/bodifwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch

Darina Radoslavova, tel +359 887 505273, Ebsjob/SbeptmbwpwbAVojDsfejuHspvq/CH