Background

Danske Bank is the trading name of Northern Bank Ltd, NI’s biggest bank and part of the local community for over 200 years. It is an autonomous subsidiary of the Danske Bank Group, headquartered in Copenhagen.

Danske serves the needs of c. 450k personal customers and 40k business customers across NI through its 40 branches, three regional business centres, digital banking and telephone banking channels.

What Danske Bank did

Digital is reshaping every industry and banking is no exception. The pace of change continues to accelerate, led by consumer behaviour and increased automation and competition in the financial sector. Danske had to start reinventing itself in the digital world.

2017/8 saw Danske Bank commence on a journey towards becoming digital at its core, with a human touch, recognising the importance of managing digital transformation responsibly and helping employees, customers and other stakeholders manage this transition.

A Chief Digital Officer was appointed in 2017 and, as an organisation, Danske Bank has sought to fundamentally change how it operates, striving for cultural change and substantially increasing digital investment levels for the benefit of both business and society.

The Bank’s strategic plan focuses on building a digitally-led, locally-focused Bank through continued transformational change in key customer journeys, digitising the Bank and how it operates, as well as through developing new strategic partnerships.

Danske Bank aims to:

• Be digital, on the inside as well as the outside, with the human touch
• Win the customer interface by adding value
• Deliver excellent digital customer experiences
• Deliver user-centred customer journey design & interfaces
• Create a paperless bank
• Help nurture and grow NI’s fintech sector and put Belfast on the global map
• Develop new strategic partnerships to help achieve its vision.

Impacts and Outcomes

• 35% increase in digital transactions
• Positive trends in customer satisfaction
• 10% increase in employee engagement
• Automation has increased capacity for employees to focus on more complex, innovative activities and deliver a higher value service to customers
• Fuelled growth of businesses and start ups through the launch of thehub.io, the Open Banking Challenge, events on cyber crime and more
• Developed future talent, through working with stakeholders in the IT and Banking sector, via the Digital Leadership Programme, speaking at events,mentoring and work placements
• Opened the Catalyst Belfast Fintech Hub event space for the benefit of external organisations
• Launched the Keep It Safe programme to educate customers on common scams
• Reduced paper consumption per employee
• Invested in new ways to bank, leading the way locally in wearable device payments
• Increased focus on skills-based volunteering, supporting digital inclusion

For more information, please email alison.falls@danskebank.co.uk