New Iberian Internet Bank Offers Financial Products To Middle-Income Clients

by Philip Morton, InvestorsOffshore.com

11 May 2001

A new online bank which will offer financial services to Spanish and Portuguese customers took off this week. Touted as a truly cross-border affair, ActivoBank - which aims to utilise the Internet to offer a range of investment and financial products to middle-income customers - was launched in spectacular fashion on board a plane flying somewhere in Iberian airspace in a ceremony intended to symbolise both the independence and Iberian roots of this new bank.

ActivoBank is a joint venture between Banco Comercial Portugues (BCP) and Spain's Banco Sabadell, who each own 45% of the Internet bank, with the remaining 10% held by the management team of Ibersecurities (10%). They plan to invest 76.7 million euros in the project over the period 2001-2003.

ActivoBank is geared towards offering a personalised private-banking style of asset management services which the bank believes have until now only been available to high net worth individuals. Whilst all transactions will be made online, ActivoBank will complement its web services with physical facilities and telephone operations 'to bring the bank as close as possible to the client and to provide the client with the opportunity to choose the means and time of contact with complete freedom. The Activo Centres, the Activa Line, the Commercial Team and the Activo Mobile Phone Centres will make up a sales and consultancy force offering advice, help and information services 24 hours a day.'

Juan Bastos, chief executive of ActivoBank, said in a statement: 'Once we have shown customers what they can get out of the Internet, they will never want to go back to traditional banking channels.' ActivoBank says its web pages have been designed so that every client can operate with them whatever the level of his or her financial expertise or computer know-how. With this in mind, different tools and services are provided, specially adapted to the individual needs of investors. Among these are included what ActivoBank has termed the fund selector, the financial calculator, the analysis or the chance of immediate access to the markets in real time, the virtual classroom and the "3 Steps to Investing" tool, whereby a client fills in a short questionnaire, defining his/her investor profile; ActivoBank offers the client a selection of the products that best suit his/her profile and then the client decides on the best option and carries out the transaction.

Mr Bastos said ActivoBank 'is an extremely powerful instrument which will provide families with a totally customised management of their savings, as clients can obtain top quality expert advice, can process information and trade financial products on a world wide scale without setting foot outside the house.' He added: 'The outstanding expertise and independent management of Activobank mean that our specialists in financial products can guarantee a service tailored to the individual interests of all our clients allowing them to benefit from a proactive approach and level of attention which up till now was enjoyed only by the wealthiest of clients in private banks.'

The new bank will operate as ActivoBank in Spain and as Activobank7 in Portugal, as in each country the bank has a different bank identification number.

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