Initiatives for innovation

In 2018, Bank BNP Paribas was the first Bank in Poland to present the Code of Cooperation with Start-ups – changes facilitating the Bank’s cooperation with young companies. Start-ups which wish to implement their solutions can do it much faster and more efficiently in cooperation with experts from the Bank and under the care of a dedicated mentor. As part of the Code, the purchase process for new technological solutions has been simplified and new document templates have been prepared for testing.

The Code of Cooperation with Start-ups develops the Bank’s opportunities for establishing business relationships with innovative, young companies.

Find out more at the website.

In 2019, the participants of the ImpactCEE technology and finance conference in Krakow, could take part in the premiere of the Elephant Whisperers, a publication dedicated to start-ups wanting to establish effective cooperation with a bank. It provides start-ups with helpful information from various fields and thus facilitates establishing cooperation with a bank. The partners of the publication are: Kancelaria Domański Zakrzewski Palinka, Impact and Fintek.

The publication touches on a number of legal issues and answers questions such as: When do you need to apply for a license from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority? What organisational and financial requirements should be met? Which laws should be observed and what regulations should be implemented in your company to conduct regulated operations? What is most important in cooperation with a bank? The publication also contains information pertaining to IT architecture and IT Security. The authors of the publication also discuss the practical applications of the Code of Cooperation with Start-ups, i.e. a number of changes introduced to facilitate the Bank’s cooperation with new companies.

After the success of the Polish publication, BNP Paribas experts responded to growing international interest (including interest in the nature of the Polish start-up market) by preparing an English version of Elephant Whisperers 2.0. Bank BNP Paribas is part of the international BNP Paribas Group which operates in 72 countries. The digital transformation team is in constant contact with their counterparts from various parts of the world. It is the regular exchange of knowledge and observations which caused interest in the Polish team’s operations. The lack of international materials on the specifics of the Polish start-up market contributed to the publication of the English version of publication Elephant Whisperers 2.0.

Find out more at the Bank’s website.

Office Hours are meetings of the Bank’s representatives with representatives of start-ups. Their goal is the search for innovative ideas and solutions that can enrich the Bank’s offer. Office Hours are part of the Code of Cooperation with Start-ups, which simplifies our internal procedures in order to facilitate the acquisition of modern technological solutions. Office Hours provide an opportunity for Bank BNP Paribas to cooperate with an increasing number of start-ups, build a strong network of contacts and find more and more innovating solutions which can be useful to our clients.

In 2019, 6 editions took place (a total of 17 editions since 2017), devoted to:

• UX services for digital products,
• management of scoring models,
• tools for building online forms,
• VAS for family banking,
• chat-bots,
• artificial intelligence (AI) to optimise paper transfer processes.

Find out more at the Bank’s website.

In addition, we supported the participants of the Seedbed program organised by EIT Food. The Bank was the mentor of the Autenti start-up. In cooperation with Autenti, our Bank has implemented a tool which allows for the fully electronic conclusion of legally binding contracts. We hope that the support of leading financial institutions will help popularise this method of concluding contracts and give a solid foundation for creating a „paperless economy”.

In August 2019, the UX Academy, organised by Bank BNP Paribas, was launched. The project includes the design, testing and implementation of system designs, services and online tools whose main goal will be user convenience.

Participants of the first edition include employees of Bank BNP Paribas and UX design graduates employed at Mobee Dick, who want to build their competences in this area. Selected participants will work in Warsaw or Krakow at BNP Paribas headquarters, in close cooperation with the Bank’s internal stakeholders and Mobee Dick – the partner of the initiative.

An increasing number of BNP Paribas products is created with the employment of agile methodologies. Due to the deficit of agile methodology specialists, the Bank decided to train its own.

A Product Owner is the person responsible for product development. He/she creates the vision and is the driving force of all product-related operations. The easiest way to become a Product Owner is to start with the career of a business analyst, process supervisor or product manager, but anyone can participate in the recruitment process. No agile-related experience was required in the recruitment process.

The first edition of the Academy was launched in September. Four one-day conventions will be held. Each participant will be assigned a mentor – an experienced person from the Agile Center with whom he/she remains in constant contact. Academy participants also participate in the Product Owners Guild. After graduating from the Academy, the participant remains employed in their current department, actively participating in its agile transformation.

The Academy is an opportunity for ambitious employees who would like to try their hand in a new role. Every supervisor with an Academy graduate on his team has increased chances for the correct implementation of the Scrum framework, and thus – for the easier transition to the agile model.

In 2019, 24 people took part in two editions of the Academy.

For more information and the Academy’s program, visit the Bank’s website.

With the increasingly important role of technology in Bank BNP Paribas products and services, the importance of agile methodologies in our daily work is also growing. The Academy is an initiative which allows the Bank to increase its agile competences with the aid of employees who have already proven themselves and who know the Bank well. At the same time, it offers these employees completely new opportunities for development and change.

Scrum Master is the person responsible for implementing and promoting the scrum framework – i.e. the framework used by the Bank to develop its key digital products (GOonline, GOmobile, Product Center). Beginner Scrum Masters are people with initiative and soft skills, e.g. project managers, developers, testers, managers, etc. Everyone can participate in the recruitment process. No agile experience was required in the recruitment process.

The first edition of the Academy was launched in September. Four one-day conventions will be held. Each participant will be assigned a mentor – an experienced person from the Agile Center with whom he/she remains in constant contact. Academy participants also participate in the Scrum Masters Guild, and their course will end with a Scrum.org certification.

After graduating from the Academy, the participant remains employed in their current department, actively participating in its agile transformation. He/she can also change departments or join the Agile Center team, which requires a separate recruitment process.

In 2019, 22 people took part in two editions of the Academy.

For more information and the Academy’s program, visit the Bank’s website.

Bank BNP Paribas, alongside PWC and Alior Bank, is a technical partner of post-graduate fintech studies organised by the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw. As part of the partnership, we will share our best practices related to implementing innovation with students.

Details are available at the website.

Bank BNP Paribas supports young entrepreneurial people. Young technology companies have long been partners in the digital transformation of the Bank. We have carried out over 16 implementations and are working on more.

In 2019, we also launched an offer for newly created micro-enterprises. Our cooperation with the Warsaw University of Technology provides opportunities for sharing expert knowledge (much needed by both parties), but is also a source of inspiration. We hope that our joint project will become another example of successful cooperation between science and business.

PL Group Innovation Mixer is the initiative of the Digital Transformation Team at Bank BNP Paribas. Its goal is to exchange the best practices and challenges related to the implementation of innovations and building a new offer for clients. It is addressed to innovation leaders of companies from the BNP Paribas Group. Meetings are held four times a year, and each time a different company is the host.

Representatives of innovation (related to both business and IT) from each of the BNP Paribas Group companies participate in PL Group Innovation Mixer meetings. Participants present specific examples of the implementation of projects and exchange experiences. In addition, they share information about interesting events (Office Hours, Scrum Master Academy organised by the Bank BNP Paribas) so that they can participate in events which are interesting from their perspective.

During four meetings of the PL Group Innovation Mixer, the discussed topics included technology and areas such as: RPA & OCR (all companies), CRM (all companies), PSD2 / TPP – BNP Paribas Cardif, Workflow – Factoring, Digitisation of correspondence – Leasing, Debt Collection Platform – Leasing, Onborading of the SME client – Arval, Insurance as a service for start-ups – BNP Paribas Cardif.

Together with the best fintechs, we want to create innovative banking services and products, with the employment of APIs and the possibilities created by the PSD2 directive. BNP Paribas was the first bank in Poland to give access to production APIs (in accordance with PSD2). The Academy aims at enabling fintechs to commercialise solutions based on PSD2. We were looking for solutions that will find the recognition of our customers. Therefore selected companies cooperate with the Bank to conduct research on the applicability of their ideas.

20 companies applied, 10 were invited to give a presentation.

Find out more at the Bank’s website.