Piraeus Bank is to launch Greece's first stand-alone direct bank through an extension of its electronic banking channel Winbank.
With more than 150,000 customers now signed up to e-banking, Piraeus is taking the concept one step further with the creation of winbankdirect, which will target not only existing Piraeus Bank customers but the entire Greek consumer banking market.
The first product available through the venture is a deposit product combining the benefits of a current account and a time deposit. This will be followed with the introduction of insurance and loans. Winbankdirect customers will be serviced primarily online, but will also have access to Piraeus' bricks-and-mortar banking network.
The opening of Winbankdirect coincides with the tenth anniversary of the launch of Piraeus' e-banking channel Winbank.
Sotiris Sirmakezis, deputy general director of Piraeus Bank, says: "More than 150,000 users are logging-in to winbank approximately 120 million times in total per year in order to execute online the majority of their banking transactions, a fact that demonstrates that e-banking has reached its maturity in the Greek market."
He says winbankdirect will offer "unique, customisable and better priced products that will not be available in Piraeus Bank's offline channels".