2020 Yearly Wrap-Up

2020 Yearly Wrap-Up

“What the hell happened in the past 12 months” is a question many of you probably ask themselves. Yes, we do, too. And here comes the answer on what happened with TBI in 2020, conveniently wrapped up for you. Because good or bad, 2020 had its highlights for us.
It was а difficult and different year, even for a different bank like us. We had a lot of plans, we had to adjust them on the go, but we’ve adapted to the challenges. We can’t say we weren’t hit by the unprecedented times we all live in, but we’ve once again proven to be a resilient team, always putting its customers first.
We can’t wait to tell you more – and hint on what we have planned for 2021. Let’s go, shall we!

What we achieved 
Let’s look at the big picture
Remember when same time last year we spoke about our plans for 2020. We wanted to launch our mobile app, offer more services to our merchant partners, put customers in the center of a universe of digital services, and enter new EU markets? Out of those, all but the last came true. Not bad for a year like that. In 2020 despite the general decline of consumer confidence, we saw a significant growth of our online channels. Eventually, we’ve once again reached the benchmark of more than 1 million loan applications in Bulgaria and Romania, in line with our expectations from before the pandemic. This figure not only means we’re among the lending champions in Southeast Europe, now we can proudly – and loudly ;) – say that every 5th Bulgarian trusted us.
Our clients’ satisfaction has a direct impact on our business – back in April we were once again ranked number one Bulgarian bank in terms of Efficiency and Profitability . And since we want to simplify our customers’ experience, we’ve launched our new brand architecture. We have transformed our Call Center from a rudimentary customer service channel into a sales powerhouse. And here’s one to the biggest part of our big puzzle – TBI’s team. Its outstanding performance during this crazy year made clear that we all share values worth that help our company thrive. And we want to share them with the world. We are brave, passionate, and caring (оr at least we think we are ;) ) – and happy to show you the proof every single day! And here comes the cherry on top: the symbol of these values is our very own Tibi , a cool unicorn-mascot with a rebel soul.

THE challenge
In life having great people on your side always helps – same is valid for business, too and especially so in challenging times. And on our team, we have plenty of smart аnd pragmatic people who spotted the danger early enough. We’ve quickly set up and implemented a four-pillar strategic approach based on cost optimization, liquidity management, and ensuring the safety of our customers and team. Within days we’ve installed protection shields on each one of our clients facing locations, provided masks to all our employees in Bulgaria and Romania, disinfected every corner of our offices and branches multiple times a week. We even went as far as introducing disinfection gates on the entrances of our HQs in Sofia and Bucharest.
Our team didn’t stop working and serving customers for a minute – even though many of us moved to work from home. We even ran our regular Town Halls and strategic meetings online – at the end of the day every strong team has to be nurtured and spend time together.

New customer-focused products and services
In case you’ve followed our Wrap-Up over the years, you know the story of our app. We were so determined to do it in the best way possible, that it took us a bit more time than planned. Well, drumrolls, it’s out. For now, only our most devoted customers have it and they seem to like it (4.7 rating on AppStore is quite the bar to reach). On time will be building the rest of our mobile banking capability around it – and offer the app to a mass audience. In short – the app follows the planned path. 2020 also challenged us to rethink some of the products that we offer. In Romania for instance, we’ve launched TBI DUO, a loan, guaranteed by a co-debtor aimed at customers who – out of whatever reason – are not eligible to receive funding. It backs up our mission of being an inclusive lender and within weeks thousands of new customers trusted us by applying. In Bulgaria and Romania our offers were extended with interest free loans, needed now more than ever. And there is also our very special TBI NEON, a no fee debit card. It is part of TBI’s day to day banking ecosystem and recently recognized by the media as one of the most competitively priced products on the market.

Strong partnerships 
The past months made us realize how important is to build relationships that last, regardless of time spent apart or distance. At TBI Bank we have thousands of companies whom we partner with and are glad that to share good or bad times with. We back up the point-of-purchase lending and boost the sales of more than 10.000 merchants’ locations – large (eMAg, Altex, Flanco, Tehnomarket, Technopolis, Zora), or small (Studio Moderna, Dr. Leahu, Oney). We constantly provide them and our common customers with new and better solution. On the technical side work with world-class partners like our digitalization power FintechOS, Provenir, ONFIDO (for identity verification) and many, many more. When it comes to traditional banking, back in January 2020 (that feels like a decade ago, doesn’t it) we were the first bank in whole Southeast Europe to join SEPA Instant, the payment scheme allowing real time money transfers between EU-based banks. We did it partnering with the central Bank of Lithuania, one of the driving forces of fintech innovation in Europe. However, we might work with some of the coolest firms on the globe, but our strongest partners remain our customers. To them and to the companies by our side – thanks for trusting us!

We didn’t stop talking 
When the world was in its ‘old normal’, members of our team were popular guests and presenters at different events and conferences all over Europe. We started strong in January 2020 with a key note presentation at MPE in Berlin, Europe’s biggest merchant payments event. But then, things froze. Well, that didn’t stop us from talking. We’ve just swapped the stage for a live stream. We were featured in international media from the US to UK. And we’re pleased to see our community that we’ve been nurturing for years now, growing, with more and more people from all corners of the Earth being interested in what we do – and how we do it. The best example for that is the fact that our LinkedIn followership almost doubled for only a year. TBI Bank was ranked Number 1 in the Innovative employer branding category on the B2B awards, and our colleagues were recognized as the most active on LinkedIn among banks in whole Southeast Europe. Bottomline, we can’t stop talking, when our story is so well received ;)

We gave back
In a year of extraordinary challenges for everyone, we at TBI tried to play a small role in helping societies sustain. From planting trees by our colleagues, to making humble donations to cover the unexpected medical needs of the health systems in Bulgaria and Romania or supporting of the Bulgarian Christmas charity initiative and the mothers of children with disabilities, we think we did what we could. In the future, we want to continue to do so.

Where we failed
It would be a cheap excuse to simply blame the pandemic for all the things we failed to do in 2020 – and, in fact, we did a good job adapting and prioritizing what has to be done. The never-ending project of rebranding of our offices all over Bulgaria and Romania has first been frozen and later carried on at a lower pace (and it was already slow). The phygital model we adopted – mixing strong digital channels and offline locations – is depended on customer-friendly locations and we know we can do more to optimize them. On the digital side our Funding “komanda” was very keen on replicating our successful Romanian online deposits platform in Bulgaria, too. That one was also put on hold until 2021 as more resources needed to be prioritized for other projects. There also was this one acquisition project on which our team spent a bit of time. It would have allowed us to enter into a new lending segment and offer our customers wider product opportunities. In order not to delay other strategic projects, we’ve decided to put it on hold and focus on our already successful business lines. And, finally, we failed to give our teams the proper Christmas party they deserve (there were a few legendary ones over the years). Here, we can blame the pandemic as making a safe event was impossible, but, hey, it will soon be over and then we’re gonna party like its 2019 ;)

Our plans
Let’s put it this way – part of TBI’s team was working hard over the Christmas holidays on making ideas happen in the name of our customers. We can’t tell you more, but we won’t disappoint you. What we can disclose is that in 2021 we’ll be focusing our developing more features for our super app. It will be providing a more holistic experience for our Bulgarian customers and look and feel different than anything else you’ve seen in terms of opportunities for lending. We’ve always said how we make everything in the name of our customers’ convenience, and what’s better for them than having many functionalities in the palm of their hands. Our beloved savings clients in Bulgaria Romania and Germany will be surprised by new products and features. Our merchant partners and common customers will be getting more tailor-made services delivered to them – a loan for small purchases and an integrated check out covering all their needs in one package to start with. We’ll be looking for the best talent in Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and, honestly, anywhere (we have colleagues from 15 nationalities and a team member working from Australia, believe it or not). Working from home will still be on, same goes for the hot desk policy in our HQs. Oh, and we plan to enter at least one new European market. Stay tuned, and we’ll be telling you everything.
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So that was the year for us at TBI Bank. We want to wish to stay safe and healthy in 2021 and remember the good news: 2020 is over ;)