Liv., the lifestyle digital bank by Emirates NBD for millennials has completed its first successful year of operations.
The mobile-only bank, established last year in line with the UAE Vision 2021’s strategic objectives of creating a smart innovation-driven economy, is fast becoming the bank of choice for the UAE’s millennial customer base on the back of its unique lifestyle-led proposition, innovative features and gamified promotional campaigns offered in collaboration with like-minded partner companies.
Addressing the media at a press briefing today, Emirates NBD’s Abdulla Qassem - Group Chief Operating Officer, Suvo Sarkar - Senior Executive Vice President & Head, Retail Banking & Wealth Management and Jayash Patel - Head of Liv., shared details of the bank’s successful trajectory since launch.
Key highlights of the journey are as below:
Fastest growing bank in the UAE acquiring over 10,000 new customers every month
Over five in six customers are millennials and new to Emirates NBD
Accounts being opened 24/7, including from remote areas of the country
Completely digital on-boarding & servicing: no branches, no sales teams, no paper
Overall cost to income ratios are about half of the main bank
High engagement with logins every two days on the average
25 partners across categories such as Fetchr, Zomato, Souq.com, Careem and others, contributing to UAE’s start up economy
Adjudged Best Digital Bank in the Middle East 2018 by Asian Banker
“In line with our vision of furthering digital innovation in the UAE, Emirates NBD’s launch of Liv. has helped create a new banking paradigm,” said Abdulla Qassem, Group Chief Operating Officer, Emirates NBD. “We are incredibly proud of the overwhelmingly positive response that Liv. has received, as we continue to innovate and lead the region’s banking sector.”
Liv.’s proposition is built around millennials’ view that money is primarily a means to gain experiences. The platform integrates lifestyle preferences with banking, helping customers keep track of their daily life and their finances on one app. Liv.’s innovative features include instant and completely paperless account opening, fund transfers through social media channels, carrying out instant bill splits with friends, tagging expenses to keep track of spends, international 60-second remittances as well as curated daily feeds of selected deals and happenings in the UAE, personalized to the customer’s preferences.
At the press briefing, Liv. announced the launch of Liv. Goals, a new feature that allows customers to set and save towards financial goals to help them achieve more of what they want, such as travel, buying a new gizmo, to gift a loved one or to simply save for a rainy day. Customers can pin a picture of their ’goal’ - for example, hiking in Machu Picchu or a new phone they want to buy - and choose to save in lump sums or in regular instalments as well as every time they top up their Liv. account or use their debit card, and earn an attractive 2% return on their balances.
“We created Liv. to offer the UAE’S digital-savvy millennial customer segment a unique proposition – a mobile-only financial ‘buddy’ that can understand and enable their lifestyle and help them better manage their finances,” commented Suvo Sarkar, Senior Executive Vice President & Group Head – Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Emirates NBD. “Liv. will continue to be a key pillar of our future growth strategy as we look to extend the proposition to other markets in the region.”
Jayash Patel, Head of Liv. added, “Liv.’s success within its launch year is testament to the growing maturity of the UAE market, as consumers embrace digital innovation in all aspects of their life. We continue to invest in our offering and strengthen appeal as we expand our product offering with the launch of new products on the platform.”
In the short time since its launch, Liv. has received recognition from regional and international awards programmes. Earlier this year, Liv. was recognized as the Best Digital Bank in the Middle East by Asian Banker as well as for Innovation in Financial Services at the Arab Innovation Awards held during the inaugural Arab Innovation Summit. Over the past year, Liv. has also been awarded the Best Digital Banking Experience of the Year at the Seamless Awards 2018, the Digital Leader – Disruption award at Digitrans 2017, the 2018 Dubai Lynx award for Creative Innovation, the 2017 Gold Midas Award in the Financial Technology category, and was a finalist in the Product & Service Innovation category at the prestigious BAI Global Innovation Awards 2017.