Fibank First Investment Bank won a prize from the card products awards OSCARDS 2008 – the first one for Bulgaria
First Investment Bank won an exceptionally prestigious award at the OSCARDS Awards 2008 ceremony held on December 17 in Paris for its co-branded credit card VISA Vivatel-FIBank in the “Loyalty” category (Europe). This is the first time when a Bulgarian bank is given an award at such a high forum. The Oscars in the field of card business are given in five categories: Loyalty and Rewards, Services, Shapes and Design, Pre-Paid Cards and Technologies.
FIBank competed in the Loyalty (Europe) category with five other card products of giants like BarclayCard (United Kingdom), MBNA (United Kingdom), Banesto (Spain), Bank Asya (Turkey) and Unicre Distribution Card (Portugal).
During the OSCARDS Awards 2008 ceremony, members of the jury praised the FIBank representatives Nikola Bakalov (director of “Card payments” department) and Anelia Mircheva (director of “Marketing, advertisement and PR” department) for the exceptional product. The jury noted that the product wins because of the clear connection between the card and the telecommunicational service in every aspect – starting from the phone-resembling design of the card, the accumulation of additional minutes for telephone calls depending on the use of the card, the international insurance which is activated with the use of either the card or the phone abroad. The jury paid special attention to the fact that this is the first and only product with vertical design and has the name of the card owner and the number of the card on a special place.
On this year’s third edition of OSCARDS Awards a total of 16 awards were given for innovative bank cards and the winners were divided into three categories: International Category, Europe Category and France Category. The sixteen world winners were chosen from a shortlist of 54 finalists among 500 bank cards that took part in the competition. Among the other winners in the Europe category are: Royal Bank of Scotland – in the Services Category, HSBC – Turkey – in the Shapes and Design category, KBC – Belgium – in the Pre-Paid Cards category, Caixa Geral de Depositos – Portugal and Altair – the United Kingdom – in the Technologies category.
OSCARDS Awards 2008 for innovative cards was organized by Publi-News with the purpose of paying tribute to creativeness and innovativeness in the card banking sector. The preliminary selection was entrusted to Publi-News and Altenor Consulting – consultation company, specialized in the filed of card strategies. The two companies evaluate card products of banks from the whole world and choose the best ones in each category. In November, when the final round held, an expert jury of international bank specialists chose the winners in each category. The awards ceremony was held on December 18 in Paris, France and the main sponsor of the event was Visa Europe through Carte Bleue (France).
The co-branded credit card Vivatel-FIBank is a result of the excellent teamwork of the largest telecommunication company in Bulgaria – BTC and FIBank. It was introduced to the Bulgarian market during the first half of December 2007 and it is intended for the adult loyal customers of Vivatel who are using the postpay subscription plans of the telecom. The holders of such cards can make payments through POS terminals and on the Internet free of charge and they can withdraw cash from ATM machines. The customer may receive up to 100 free minutes on the Vivatel network depending on the payments turnover made with the card.
The co-branded Vivatel-FIBank credit cards are issued with high credit limits (up to BGN 10 000) and they have a long grace period (up to 60 days). If the customer repays his/her entire liability within the grace period no interest is accrued which means that he/she has been granted an interest-free loan. During the first year there is no annual maintenance fee and from the second year it is lower than the standard Visa cards maintenance fee.
The customers of FIBank and Vivatel who are holders of the co-branded card receive also many additional bonuses – automatic payment of the monthly bill to Vivatel free of charge, free SMS notifications in real time for all transactions made with the card and a free international travel insurance, activated automatically after a roaming call or a payment abroad made with the card.