{"id":19066,"date":"2016-11-18T16:12:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T21:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/why-venmo-would-not-succeed-in-poland-i-e-my-banks-are-better-than-yours\/"},"modified":"2016-11-18T16:12:27","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T21:12:27","slug":"why-venmo-would-not-succeed-in-poland-i-e-my-banks-are-better-than-yours","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/why-venmo-would-not-succeed-in-poland-i-e-my-banks-are-better-than-yours\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Venmo would not succeed in Poland, i.e. “My banks are better than yours”"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 14th<\/sup> 2016 was my first day ever in the US. Together with my wife, we decided to fly in two weeks before classes at HBS were supposed to start to get to know Boston, settle in and, most annoyingly, sort out necessities, such as mobile phone numbers and\u2026 bank accounts. The latter resulted in particularly many problems, which prompted me to write this piece.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Eastern Europe, with a brief stint in London, I have always been taught that the West, the US in particular, is way more advanced than Poland, where I come from, in any respect, technology being one of the most obvious areas. In terms of retail banking back home, I only had to visit a branch when it was necessary to set up my bank account (but even then, some banks offered online sign ups). Almost everything I could do either online, or through a mobile app. Same day transfers? No problem, just use your app. \u201cAccount maintenance fees\u201d? We don\u2019t really have that. Currency exchange? Online, great rates, no additional fees. I assumed the same would be the case when I move to the US \u2013 oh, how wrong I was\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to dwell on frequent visits to far away branches, still using paper checks and 3-day transfer clearance periods. Having discovered the magic app Venmno made our lives easier, but made me question whether this sort of solution would have any use where I come from \u2013 probably not, every bank has its own Venmo. So, let me tell you a story of mBank, one of Poland\u2019s first online banks, which started a digital revolution in how financial institutions serve their clients in Poland.<\/p>\n

It all starts in the year 2000 (only 11 years after Poland regained its independence from Soviet Union), when German Commerzbank-owned BRE Bank launched its new entirely digital retail arm, mBank, in just 100 days. The original business model, championed by Mr Slawomir Lachowski (BRE management board), aimed for mBank to become a \u201cbanking Walmart\u201d that would offer customers limited number of high quality products at very attractive prices. The bank\u2019s success was to be driven by rapid technological advancement and innovation, in particular mobile phone use which, at that time was three times as prevalent as use of internet[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the most important decisions the bank took towards digitization were:<\/p>\n