"We stay close to our customers", Gergana Staykova talks to Standart newspaper

How borrowing is no longer borrowing and how to make your partners happy? Gergana Staykova, our SVP Lending and Distribution, talks business in Standart newspaper’s last issue.
She discussed various ways TBI Bank is employing to ease lending, and also shed light on borrowing habits in Bulgaria. Have a read if you’re interested in latest generation banking products, including how TBI Bank is on the path to automating processes that normally take days only to improve our customers’ journey, or how our network of partners can benefit from exclusive services that will grow their business as well.

Mrs. Staykova, how has TBI Bank changed in the last two years since the 4finance acquisition?
Even before the deal with 4finance, TBI was already an established institution with significant presence in Bulgaria for the last 15 years. It has built a strong brand here and in Romania by being convenient and customer-friendly. Consequently, a solid base of clients has been developed. The added value and the key change brought by 4finance, being a global digital lender, is the digitalisation focus that added a new niche to our core business. When we talk about digitalisation, everybody starts thinking about all these digital banks that have no presence in terms of branches and physical presence on the markets. That’s not exactly what we aim to do. Our core business is offline lending. We will stay close to our clients and continue serving them to the best of our ability.

What value will the digitalisaition give to the customers? 
We are adding multiple ways to serve them. One of the reasons is because our customer portfolio ranges from early millennials to retirees – and we are offering access to financing to all of them. They all have different preferences when it comes to channels of communication with us. One would like come to the branch and stay there and chat with our colleagues in person. Another would like to contact the call center. Some would prefer to use our dedicated bank app. Then there are those who would rather apply for a loan via Viber. We are integrating all this channels as a front-end connection to our app for to the customer to choose the best way to reach us.

Since we’re talking about lending, to what purpose people in Bulgaria borrow money?
People borrow money for various reasons. Based on them, they choose a bank a concrete product. We offer short-term, smaller loans and to serve customers’ immediate everyday needs. It might be time for them to buy firewood for winter or invest in student equipment. This might be costly, if they choose the wrong loan product. But with TBI Bank, it becomes accessible. Our products, both on the purchase financing and the cash lending, are designed to serve the basic needs of the client so they are able to better manage their finances.

In essence, your aim is to resonate with customers’ daily needs?
Of course – adapting to our customers’ lifestyle by offering them flexible products at reasonable rates is essential to our business model. We stay close to our clients. I visit our branches in whole country all the time met them all the time. Many have been with us for years. For them it’s not really borrowing anymore. By focusing on flexibility and efficiency, our products and services are becoming integral to customers’ daily rounds – they go and take the money they need to cover everyday expenses. Most probably other banks won’t finance them. It’s not really a loan that you come and take and you have to pay in the upcoming five years. It is like a natural interaction.

What ways are there to ease lending?
When you want to borrow money from a bank, you go to a number of banks to compare their offers. You declare the amount that you want to take, after which you have to bring some documents. Depending on the extent to which a bank’s processes are automated, approval may take between 15 to 20 minutes. But that’s rarely the case. For most of the banks it will most likely take a day or two for you to receive an answer. However, you have to apply for it. Now, in our case, customers that have once applied for a loan, will know what the maximum amount they can borrow is. They don’t need to even apply for it – the moment they decide they need the extra cash, they just need to say “yes” and the money will materialise into their accounts.

What is the key to point of sales?
We call it ‘business to business’. While for cash lending our client is the end user of the money, in point–of-sale finance we have two clients. One is the customer who buys the goods and the other one is our partner merchant. We are currently working on a number of solutions for the partners to not only serve their customers, but to also grow their own businesses. There are specific sectors that everybody is going to – such as electronics, furniture, do it yourself, construction materials and so on. But there are a lot of service industries, like dentistry, that no bank has touched and these are of interest for us. Now people should consult with a dentist and a bank individually in case they need a loan for a tooth implant, for example.  But if TBI Bank has a partnership with a given dentist, this would be a needless process and clients would have the opportunity to apply for a loan at the dentist’s office. Plus we have developed an easy tool for our partners – we wouldn’t expect from the dentists to take the role of credit consultants. Our goal is to develop two-way mutually beneficial relationships.

And finally, what professional advice would you give to people when they consider borrowing money?
There are three important things to consider. One is the due date: Just pay attention not to pick a due date which is a few days before pay day because this will only cause you stress. Second is of course insurance. It is very helpful because you never know what might happen. Through our partner we offer a sensible range of insurance products. For example, we offer protection in case of unexpected termination of employment contract.  In the event of the occurrence of such unforeseen situations, the entire debt could be covered. Third is for the ones that might believe not repaying their obligation is not an issue. We need to understand there is a central credit register in which repayment behavior is tracked. No one wants to be in the situation that for the next two to three years, nobody would lend them money because they didn’t repay their bank loans.