Bank Austria and Media Consult Story Development awarded the Austrian State Prize for Public Relations 2013 in the “Internal PR” category

• Bank Austria and Media Consult beat off strong competition to win the “Internal PR” category of the Austrian State Prize for Public Relations 2013
• The “Bankville – Erlebnis Zukunft” (“Bankville – Experience the Future”) project actively involves 280 managerial staff in designing the “bank of the future” by means of a state-of-the-art game

Vienna, Austria, 27-11-2013 — /EuropaWire/ — Bank Austria and its external consultant, Media Consult Story Development, have been awarded the Austrian State Prize for Public Relations 2013 in the “Internal PR” category. They won the award for the “Bankville – Erlebnis Zukunft” (“Bankville – Experience the Future”) project, in which 280 managerial staff were involved in jointly developing the bank of the future during a change process lasting several months. The process developed for this project featured elements inspired by game design. In teams of 10, the participants had to solve tasks on a specially designed online platform, www.bankville.at. These tasks covered various areas, including improving future client offers and services. The project began at the beginning of 2013 at a grand launch event for 280 managers.

The award was accepted by Anton Kolarik, Head of Identity & Communications for Bank Austria: “We are delighted to receive this prize and be recognised for our innovative approach to actively managing the future. The project was aimed at developing usable ideas for the bank of the future and for our new SmartBanking business model. On the one hand, the focus was on enhancing our managers’ knowledge of change processes, but we also devised quite specific strategies for improving future products and services for our clients”.

The project involves developing usable ideas for the working world of the future, as well as for the new SmartBanking business model. This model is already paving the way for networking virtual and physical bank branches, with the clients deciding how, when and where they make contact with Bank Austria and ask for assistance. SmartBanking offers personal advice on day-to-day banking requirements to all clients interested in using this service via video calling, by telephone or text message, via online and mobile banking or at any of Bank Austria’s branches.

Enquiries: Bank Austria Press Office Austria
Matthias Raftl, Tel. +43 (0) 50505 – 52809
E-mail: matthias.raftl@unicreditgroup.at

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