Allied Irish Banks Ditches Standalone Internet Offering
Allied
Irish Banks PLC announced recently that it has pulled
the plug on plans for a standalone internet bank.
The venture, expected to launch at the end of last
year, was considered by some to be a response to criticisms
that the bank was slow to embrace internet banking.
Tom Mulcahy, chief executive officer at AIB, said
in August that the proposed standalone internet bank
would allow the group to attract new, and previously
hard to reach customers, and indicated that product
and brand development were 'well advanced', even at
that stage. Yesterday
however, he announced that: 'Following a review of
our e-business strategy in Ireland, AIB will focus
on developing and expanding 24hour-online, our existing
online service, as the core internet offering for
the Irish personal market.' Mr Mulcahy insisted, however,
that AIB's multi-channel strategy was proving successful,
and that new business was being won via the bank's
online channels. He also revealed that the banks internal
processes were being e-enabled in order to make them
more efficient. (Protesting too much? Perish the thought.) AIB is
the latest in a series of banks to execute expensive
U-turns with regard to pure online banking. Last week,
Alliance and Leicester admitted that it had invested
some £15 million in developing a standalone
internet service, which it subsequently decided not
to launch. .
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