MBNA Connect Receives Industry Accolade

A new online secure message delivery service that delivers account information to a cardholder’s computer desktop has received industry recognition at the 2009 Credit Card Awards held in London on Thursday evening.

MBNA Connect allows customers to download an application to their computers, and keep up to date with secure account balances, transaction updates, latest offers, mini-statements and more via desktop alerts.

MBNA Connect received the ‘Best Online Initiative’ award at the Card Awards ceremony which was held at Battersea Evolution in London and was hosted by radio presenter John Humphreys. The application has been developed by MBNA in conjunction with Skinkers Limited.

MBNA Connect is a secure downloadable application available to MBNA Online Banking customers. It allows customers to access account information on their desktops without having to log in to their account. The tool provides the customer with the most up-to-date balance, recent transactions, service information and personalised offers. MBNA Connect also provides a facility to configure a variety of alerts relating to account activity.

The key benefits that MBNA customers will gain by using MBNA Connect include:

• Improved financial management (for example: customers can set an alert to notify them when their balance reaches a certain amount);
• Proactive alerting to help customers avoid unnecessary charges when approaching their credit limit;
• Reduced risk of fraud (for example: customers can set an alert to notify them if a transaction goes over a certain amount);
• Increased awareness of offers and benefits designed specifically for the customer and delivered in a non-intrusive manner;
• Personalised rather than generic promotional offers.

Greg Reed, president of MBNA UK Card, said: “MBNA Connect is like having your own personal banking advisor on your desktop. This unique technology, which has been developed by Skinkers, is a first for the financial services industry. We are delighted to have received this award.”

David Long, chief executive officer at Skinkers, said: “We are delighted that our technology is being used by MBNA to form part of a shift in online marketing and CRM for the banking industry. MBNA Connect is based on our Live Notification Platform technology that not only utilises the desktop as an effective communication channel but also enhances existing communication channels through scalable and audited communication and reporting. We hope that we can work with MBNA in the future to bring together all their customer communications under our technology platform.”

MBNA customers can view a demonstration of MBNA Connect by logging into their online banking service.