Banco Sabadell wants to gain market share among individuals and has rethought its strategy in this business segment with the launch of a new online current account with a remuneration of 2% up to 20,000 euros and without conditions or fees for new users.
This was announced on Monday by the bank's CEO, César González Bueno, at the launch of the new proposal that aims to win more digital customers and advance in the integration of the company's traditional and online business. "It's an account with a vocation for permanence. It is not a promotion, but has an indefinite term," González Bueno and Jorge Rodríguez Maroto, director of Retail Banking, explained to the media.
The account has no commissions, no conditions, no payroll, 3% back for electricity and gas bills, and credit and debit cards will be free of charge. The product replaces the online account that Sabadell already had active for just over a year, in which it is remunerated at 2.5% in the first year up to a maximum of 30,000 euros and 200 euros for keeping the payroll. This account disappears and your customers will be assimilated into the new one, without prejudice to the promotions that may be in force at this time. On the other hand, customers who have another type of account will have an "equivalent alternative that may or may not be the same depending on their individual characteristics".
The first and main objective of the bank with this new strategy is to attract new customers so that they become global customers of the bank, hence it is a product accessible only to new users. "We haven't set ourselves a target for attracting funds," the CEO told the media when explaining the "radical changes" in the bank's new strategy. These changes involve not focusing so much on the traditional customer, "but also addressing the digital customer. We expect our quota to increase but we don't have a target in our heads."
Sabadell currently has a 7% share of business in the Individuals segment and 10% in holders. In Spain there are 36 million current accounts and 2.7 million deposit holders, "6.5%, which reached 2011% at the peak of 13", said César González-Bueno.
The new account means ruling out for the time being a more determined commitment to the remuneration of deposits. None of Spain's big banks are now in that battle, and neither is Sabadell. "We don't have the vocation to make a large deposit in installments," said González Bueno, in case there was any doubt.
The CEO believes that the 2% remuneration in the new account is attractive enough for more customers to end up joining the bank. In principle, there is no requirement for other commitments related to payroll or contracting other products, although the bank hopes that these movements will end up taking place in a "natural" way in the daily operations of new customers. "If interest rates were to rise, for example, to 7%, or return to negative territory, we would have to review" the remuneration percentage, but without changes of that caliber it would be 2%," he said.