If one relies solely on the color, difficult to tell which animal there is really deal: Dragon spitter of flames or tiger in origami? Is the arrival of Orange bank a real threat to traditional banks?

With the promise of an innovative, simple, 100% mobile and almost free offer, does Orange Bank bring something more and will it be able to “disrupt” (to take over a neologism often used) the banking industry? We decided to observe the animal more closely to evaluate its real danger and to test by us the services of this néobanque.

“You’ll never get a second chance to make a good first impression …” 

It all starts with the installation of the Orange Bank application, easily recoverable on the download platforms: the opening of the account process seems at first glance simple and fast.

Unfortunately, very quickly, things get spoiled … On several occasions, the screen freezes: Unable to validate the account opening request. And the client course turns to the path of the fighter, not to say to the nightmare: accumulation of bugs and slowness on the application, reception in the agency for the least “floating”, processing times by the back-office, difficulties to carry out the Initial payment (which requires a payment by credit card), endless chat exchanges with long minutes of waiting between each message, means of payment that do not arrive at destination … As for, Djingo, the virtual assistant available H24, he declares himself incompetent on most subjects (explaining, to justify himself, that he is still in the learning phase).

Any sensible customer would have slammed the (virtual) door of such a “bank” for a while.

A whirlwind start … But a missed start!

In view of the problems encountered and the outcry on social networks, it is said that a break-in phase will probably be necessary. It is undoubtedly necessary to put all this on account of the infatuation aroused by Orange Bank and the 30 000 requests for account opening registered in just 10 days. Is Orange Bank the victim of its success? Nevertheless, this gives the impression of a huge unprepared, particularly surprising, given the successive reports and the media hustle and bustle that preceded the launch of the offer.

At the risk of appearing tautological, in the concept of “digital bank” It is a priori question of “bank” and “digital”.

However, in terms of “banking”, the offer made by Orange Bank is so minimalist that the customer can hardly do without the services of another bank to satisfy all its needs in relation to the financial sphere. It is certain that this offer will be extended in the coming months, but at this point we are a thousand leagues from what the banks, though digital, are able to offer to their customers. What’s more, Orange is likely to find out soon that the account and the means of payment induce problems of compliance, fraud and risk. But beyond the issues related to banking technique, the bank is primarily a service industry, highly competitive, where differentiation is increasingly based on the ability to deliver a reliable and quality service in an industrial way, and to Manage the overall dimensions of the customer relationship to provide the latter with a positive experience …

As for the “digital”, again, Orange Bank is not really at the rendezvous: access to the account can only be done on smartphone or tablet and it is not possible to view its accounts from a computer (not really “ATAWAD” all this), the Navigate Ion in the application (yet very stripped considering the minimalist character of the service offer) is not really fluid nor intuitive (good luck to whoever wants to order a checkbook or print a RIB from his smartphone)… It looks rather like the designers have sought to aggregate some interesting features (failing to be truly innovative) such as the use of biometrics to connect to the application via Touch ID, the chatbot, the Payment by SMS or the possibility of temporarily suspending its credit card … But the account is not there: the “digital-banking” cannot be summed up with a simple compilation of “Smartphone gadgets”. It must be a way to revisit and simplify customer paths, to propose new uses in a Omnicanale logic.

Is Orange actually able to succeed?

Difficult at this point to predict if Orange Bank will be successful in conquering 2 million of customers and to be profitable by 2021. Just remember that after a dozen years of existence, with a complete banking offer and considerable marketing means, Boursorama Bank has recruited only one million customers and the profitability of its model is always debatable.

In these circumstances, is Orange Bank a real threat to traditional banks? Beyond the effects of announcement, the enthusiasm aroused by such a media launch, we can see that the traditional banks are able to retaliate (EKO to Crédit Agricole, Avantoo for the CM-CIC, Hello and Nickel at BNP Paribas …). The battle will be played mainly on the ability of each other to deliver a quality service, to deploy useful innovations, which bring a real “more” in terms of customer use and experience, to make the synergies play fully between The different channels of customer relationship, including the proximity channels, networks of agencies or partners (green Points of Crédit Agricole, or tobacconists for BNP Paribas …).

On the other hand, the arrival of this new low-cost actor and adept of free will undoubtedly accentuate the pressure on the pricing of banking services, which is certainly not good news for the profession as a whole.

[Automatically translated by Lingotek]