CaixaBank launches "Wall" 2.0, aimed at driving growth in business banking

The new service allows for closer and more effective interaction with business customers

• The bank expects a 2014 market share of 28.5% in the business market.

CaixaBank has launched a new model for its relations with business banking customers, inspired by social networks and based on web 2.0 technology, thus seeking to consolidate its growth in the business segment.

The main new feature is the business "Wall", a unique service in the Spanish business banking segment. This works in a similar fashion to the Facebook "wall", providing a fully secure channel for communications between businesses and CaixaBank consultants. The "Wall" is available to customers of CaixaBank business centres via Línea Aberta, the bank's online banking channel.

The "Wall" also supports video-calls, allowing for even greater interaction.

Thus, the "Wall" will help the bank's consultants to provide better services to business customers, while acting a secure and efficient channel for operational issues.

A fully secure "Wall", customised to businesses needs

Unlike the "walls" used in social networks, this new service from CaixaEmpresa includes two new technological features to cater to the needs of business customers.

First, each company will have its own "Wall", but multiple users from each company may be authorised to use the same, meaning more than one employee can interact with the bank. Secondly, by using the Línea Abierta online channel, all communications and documents shared via the "Wall" are kept fully confidential. Only the business customer and banking consultant will be able to view them.

Secure document delivery: innovation to drive efficiency

The "Wall" supports communications between customers and their consultants, but also optimizes operations. The technology allows documents to be securely shared and signed remotely, thus automating document search and filing tasks. This makes for more efficient day-to-day operations for businesses and bank agents, while also providing tighter security guarantees.

CaixaBank has a track record of driving up efficiency via technological innovation. In late 2012 the bank launched its "wall" concept for private banking and personal banking customers.

Market share growth targets

The new CaixaEmpresa interaction model is the most recent service innovation in a segment where CaixaBank seeking to expand its market share. The 2011-2014 Strategic Plan targets a 2014 market share of 28.5%. The bank is currently growing in business banking products, such as factoring and reverse factoring (market share of 17.4%) and foreign trade (where the bank has a 22.9% market share).

CaixaEmpresa's value proposition is founded on close customer support. As well as the most advanced multi-channel banking service in the industry, CaixaEmpresa operates a network of branches that specialise in business banking, staffed by experts capable of providing financial solutions that are customised to each business' requirements and offering innovative products and services.

CaixaBank, a leader in innovation

CaixaBank is renowned internationally for its innovation-based strategy. It has the largest number of electronic banking customers in Spain, with more than 12.5 million cards in circulation, more than 200,000 commercial customers, 9.4 million Línea Abierta customers and 3.6 million mobile banking customers.

As well as leading in terms of numbers, CaixaBank also leads in service quality. The bank has topped the AQMetrix rankings for more than 3 consecutive years, including the business banking and foreign trade categories. These rankings measure aspects of Spanish banks' online and mobile channels, such as availability, how fast users can perform transactions, the range of products and services on offer and customer service.

The bank was recently awarded the prize for the world's most innovative bank at the Global Banking Innovation Awards, run by the Bank Administration Institute (BAI) and Finacle. This award follows other prestigious honours won by CaixaBank, such as being named "Global Innovator Winner" by Efma and Accenture, and "Best Retail Bank for Technology Innovation" by Euromoney for the bank's global innovation strategy.

CaixaBank has also won international awards for innovation in specific business areas, such as the award from The Banker magazine (Most Sustainable Technological Innovation), Global Finance (Best Internet Bank in Spain) and Private Banker International (Most innovative business model).