Giorgi Shagidze, maib CEO, in an interview about digital banking
The digital transformation commitment taken by maib in its strategy shows progress day by day, year by year. In May 2023, maib’s mobile app maibank marked its 5th anniversary.
On this occasion, Giorgi Shagidze, maib CEO, spoke about the most important achievements registered by the bank in this regard, the benefits that maib customers enjoy every day, as well as the plans in the digital field.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGWUSTkR2hA
What ”digital first” means for maib?
In our concept, ”digital first” we actually mean “mobile first”, we mean the mobile application which is very intuitive, which is rich in functionalities, at the same time being very simple to use and is designed to meet the customer changing expectations.
Which functionalities are the most used in the maib mobile app – maibank?
The most used functionalities are the p2p payments, we see a quite rapid increase in utility payments, any type of utility payments and in our app you can already find about up to 400 type of utility payments.
We also have new features such as taking the loan through the app, opening the term deposit though the app. So these are used as well.
What features do you like mostly in the maibank? Which one do you use most often?
Like any other customer I also use the utility payments, p2p payments, those would be the two most used features. I also use the maib junior card, which is a quite convenient way to transfer money to my kids and also understand how they spend it.
Maibank celebrates 5 years. How do you plan to surprise maib clients on this anniversary?
Indeed, the numbers are very encouraging and we have about 450 thousand maibank users. Only the last year number of users increased by 50%. Also, 50% of our term deposits were opened via maibank, 25% of loans were disbursed by maibank, and the numbers are growing.
Now we are launching new program called ”365 days with maib” where each day we will be disclosing, publishing new functions, new services or new products which are designed to meet the customer needs.
How maibank makes customer’ life simple and easy?
I think the key is again to put the customer at the center and ensure that all the features and services are designed to meet the customer changing expectations and needs.
Other very important focus area is to ensure that the application is very simple and intuitive, and the combination of right features and the focus on simpleness and intuitiveness ensures that the customers use the app and they have high user experience.
What are next targets in the development of the digital strategy at maib?
Here we will be to launching new products and services, again, fine-tuned to meet the customer needs.
I would once again emphasize our focus on not only to the traditional digital banking, mobile app, but also to the ecosystems. DriveHub, CasaHub, AgricolaHub are the examples of ecosystems, whereby we try to meet the customer needs related to automobile, related to housing, related to agricultural products in the digital space with one unique integrated customer experience digital space.
Why customers choose to use maibank daily?
First of all, to meet their daily banking needs with quite simple features of making payments, making utility payments, and then the features of getting the loan through the application, the feature of getting the card, accessing to our partnership network, to debit or credit card, and other sophisticated products which we are adding in the application are the ones that customer love at maibank.
How would you describe maibank?
I want to say is a journey, and I don’t think we are there, we are moving there and our vision is to ensure that the app is very intuitive, very simple and fine-tuned to the customer needs.
Why digital?
So what we know is that the customers are changing their expectations quite rapidly so for us is key to transform the bank and put the customer in the center of everything we do, and all the processes are aligned so that they meet the customer changing expectations.
What agile does is that it puts together the right talent, right people very close to customers and it equips them to make the changes so that we meet the customer changing expectations.
