Emirates NBD to offer banking services via Twitter

Dubai’s biggest bank Emirates NBD is launching select banking services via social networking site Twitter, the lender announced on Wednesday.

The new service will allow customers to tweet Emirates NBD for enquiries about their current or savings account and credit cards.

Users can also request to view the last five transactions, balance enquiry and the previous month’s e-statement.

The bank will respond to queries via a direct message to safeguard customer privacy, a statement said.

Senior executive vice president and head of retail banking and wealth management Suvo Sarkar said: ““Our customers today have a deep affinity with social media and mobile-based applications and services. By offering innovative banking solutions though these oft-used digital channels, we want to make banking more accessible and fun.”

Currently, one third of the bank’s active customer base use mobile and online banking regularly, the lender said.

It has over 65,000 followers on Twitter and over 410,000 ‘likes’on its official Facebook page.

Speaking to Gulf Business last year, Sarkar said the lender was using social media as one of the major tools to interact with customers and resolve problems.

“Facebook and Twitter are two of our fastest growing channels for customers to complain and give feedback and we react within hours on those. The resolution or satisfaction we are measuring on these channels is higher than traditional channels.

“If customers are upset about a service failure and we resolve the issue well in two to three hours, they then promote us to their friends and colleagues so it works in our favour in keeping them happy,” he added.