Thorsten Jekel
Welcome to another episode of “Switch on your brain first, then technology”. And you know that in addition to my own impulses, I always have smart people with me. And I always say that a digital mindset is not a question of age. And without wishing to offend my interview guest today, he has been young for a while and is about to retire as a member of the Board of Directors of VR Starnberg, Herrsching, Landsberg. I hope I got that right, dear Mr. Pölt. Because I don’t always get it quite right when it comes to mergers. I think I got to know you when you were still a board member of Volksbank Starnberg, that’s how long we’ve known each other. Perhaps, before I tell you much more about yourself, you would like to briefly tell me about your career path, what you have experienced so far with the topic of digitalization?
Josef Pölt
Basically quite a lot, I have to be honest. So it started at a very early age, along the lines of, let’s go into Excel and so on. If something didn’t work for us, then I just programmed something that did. And if I had to do things three times, then even more so. So that was my introduction to the whole subject. Then, of course, there was the fact that I’ve actually been working with Apple for a relatively long time, which is not quite so en vogue in the banking world. Especially when you have data center service providers, where it’s sometimes a bit more difficult. But I’ve always been interested in it because I always say it helps you move forward. Not just professionally, but I’ve also used it a lot in my private life. I’ve just built a complete smart home in a new build, and I think you get a lot from that side. And for me it was always important to ultimately find out what the future holds, because it will somehow affect my business model, in whatever form. And I always wanted to stay in vogue and make sure that I got as much out of it as possible. That’s actually the background, not to be left behind and perhaps sometimes to react early to something that influences us.
Thorsten Jekel
I find it fascinating. We were just talking last week, when I looked at Mr. Pölt, who is a bit older than me, and he has a more modern smart home than I do. I’ve only just managed to get to the lighting control and you really have everything with heating and all the trimmings. So what I think is nice is that they say it makes sense to deal with this topic. And on the one hand, of course, it’s a gimmick. But why do you think it makes sense for a board member to get involved with technical gimmicks? Because there are many colleagues who say that I have my IT. As a board member, let me say, that’s not my issue. Why does it perhaps make sense to deal with this topic as a board member?
Josef Pölt
First of all, I personally believe that the whole topic of IT, which is now coming our way with, let me say, process processing, artificial intelligence, smart data and so on, will also be a major regulatory issue for us. We are aware of statements from BaFin that assume that we will also need a pure IT board member in the cooperative sector for the larger units in the future. In other words, not a banker who has learned a bit of IT, but rather a reverse IT specialist who has learned a bit of banking, which also makes sense because the systems are becoming very, very complex and the underlying risks are of course very high, especially in our business area. We notice this every day, to be honest. When I look at the attacks we get and how money is taken from customers and so on. Of course, it’s not always, or actually never our fault, but actually always the customers’ fault because they react to certain things. But it is simply necessary to provide a lot of information. And that also requires a certain amount of basic knowledge. I’m not the screwdriver. So I’m not the one who goes into the boxes and does something somewhere, but I’m actually concerned with the sense of what it can make easier for us in our work, for example. And if you are a regional bank today, then you also have to think about process efficiencies, simply being able to push the cost factor down as far as possible and being able to compete with direct banks, neobanks and so on. And that’s actually the background to dealing with this. And that’s actually what I’ve been doing since I joined the Management Board.
Thorsten Jekel
What examples are there where you say you have been able to increase process efficiency at the bank in recent years through digitalization?
Josef Pölt
We are always somewhat dependent on our service provider Atruvia. But we are certainly prepared to try new things. So we’ve now done some pilot work with Atruvia in the direction of smart data approaches, simply to verify certain things better for us, to deal with the customer better, to offer the customer better solutions. Which is not easy. As a bank, you need a written signature from the customer that (…) you are allowed to do this. We are currently in the process of doing this. In process automation, we work a lot with RPAs, some of which we program ourselves. We have a young nerd, I always say, who I always go to when I need something, because he can do it, he understands the problem I want. And we’ve achieved quite a lot in automation. Although I have to say that it doesn’t go far enough for me, not fast enough in many areas. But it also depends a bit on the service provider. So if I go here today and say, a very banal account opening, how does it work? I was at Cisco’s innovation center in 2014, well, at NCR’s innovation center in New York. It took eight seconds to open an account. So we’re still a long way off. They simply swipe a personal card in the account application and that’s it. That would work in many cases today. There are apps like Verime, which I have been using for a long time, but also Neck Wallet, for example, which are very strong in the insurance sector. So why can’t something like this be implemented to make these processes quicker and easier? For us, it’s still like this, to put it mildly, you write off a lot. You have the card in front of you and you type over it. That can’t really be the case. It actually has to be entered into the systems in dark processing. And then you realize how much work is involved. So if I go here today and say I’m changing my address, then I don’t just have to change it at my bank, but I also have to change what I know how much at other companies, for example. Sometimes it works quite well and sometimes not so well. And these are simply things that have a massive impact. We have been able to greatly reduce certain things. So we once made a consumer loan ourselves, which we actually built with a credit decision system, up to €100,000. It takes 29 minutes to pay out. So then the customer has the money in their account, everything has been checked and so on.
Thorsten Jekel
With Schufa interface and all the trimmings, probably.
Josef Pölt
You can certainly compete with the players, such as our team bank, for example.
Josef Pölt
Sometimes it’s difficult to implement things because you have to consider one thing above all else. The technology is one thing. The people who work with it are the other side. That’s my motto and I’ll never get rid of it until I retire. I always say that 80% of the process is in front of the box. And my people don’t believe me, because they always complain about the processes. But when we see them working sometimes, you can see what opportunities you still have to move certain things forward.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, we also discussed it last week on the subject of Microsoft 365, where on the one hand there is a huge opportunity to do things differently, to say, for example, instead of email, you use a planner board or things like that. I think you are right in the middle of this process. So what are your experiences on this topic?
Josef Pölt
Yes, difficult. Actually. I have to be honest. We get statements, of course. Six or seven weeks ago, I had an appointment with Atruvia on the subject, and I told the person in charge right up front that I didn’t want to hear anything about, start slowly, do this and so on and so forth, but I’m actually interested in taking people with me. So of course I’ll start somewhere by saying that I’m switching my Notes, emails to Outlook and so on, but in this context I actually want to avoid pouring old wine into new bottles. The problem is simple, we ran through this in our IT department. We took a look at our employees’ mail folders. It goes from people who have a single mail folder with 25,000 emails to people who have 300 subfolders where they put everything and who prefer to keep their entire lives in there, because it could happen that you have to look something up. We’re talking about collaboration right now. Just think about the normal Office 365 Word, Excel, etc. We have an incredible number of files, which is of course also difficult for us in terms of IT security. If you look at Excel today, we have very capable people who program Excel and Access files with many, many things, but for auditing reasons alone. The person who described this file took longer than programming the thing, to be honest. And that is simply a topic where you have to be careful. And we have simply screened our drive folders. So just to know how much we have? We stopped at 54 percent, which meant we had over 250,000 drive folders in the entire bank. And I can see that some files are stored up to 40 times in different locations.
Thorsten Jekel
Content identical in the worst case.
Josef Pölt
Yes, and that’s exactly what I don’t imagine I can actually achieve with teams, for example, with all this collaboration. We work together on a file and so on. And I think that’s the difficult thing to get into people’s heads, because of course many people don’t have an understanding of technology. Why does it work like this now? How do I work in versions of files? I think that’s the main task you have to get across. Not so much how the technical background works. That’s what IT does, they determine that and then there’s a folder somewhere and that’s where it is. But that’s just the way it is. And that actually starts with us on the Management Board. We are three Management Board members plus a Chief Representative, who will be my successor. And all four of us work on different systems. Yes, that’s understandable. One loves it, the other likes doing it and so on. We did switch our intranet to an external employee app a few years ago. I am also, yes, very familiar with the company. I know the owner quite well and we developed it with him back then to meet our needs because we also wanted to reach our employees outside of managed devices. It was also an important issue for us, because we don’t provide 400 cell phones to all employees, but somewhere, I’ll say now, we have one fifth with managed devices, the rest not. And we’ve built something there and it’s going down well, it’s also our main communication tool at the moment and will certainly change in principle with teams. But we’ve retained a certain amount and it’s actually going quite well, it’s relatively uncomplicated and, above all, I don’t have to explain anything because things are made extremely simple. It’s always important to me to make software simple. I’m not the, I’m not the programmer. I’m the one who looks at something and says okay, no, complicated, doesn’t suit me, just has to be simple. And we’ve managed that quite well. And we communicate via this channel. And now, as I said, we’re in the process of converting the teams to try and merge these basic problems, i.e. files, folders and so on, to try and merge e-mails and clearly steam together here.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, I always think it’s important to do exactly what you say, I always say the layer 8 problem. So that’s the human being is the bottleneck in many areas, how you work with it. And it’s not malice at all, it’s often not the case that if people don’t know that there is versioning, for example, which is now relatively powerful, then of course I can understand that everyone says, oh, if I’m working on this file together and my colleague shoots up what I’ve spent hours working on, then I’d rather save it again on my drive. That’s always the, I’ll say, famous thesis and what is done. I think it’s important to explain and demonstrate how to do this on the one hand, and also things like being able to make files visible again in the normal file manager using the synchronization button in Teams, for example. So, for example, I am someone who, just like you, says it should be as simple as possible and, where possible, also build bridges to the old world. So with Teams, for example, I usually tell my customers to synchronize them with the file manager, then everyone has a OneDrive drive in their Windows file explorer, as they know it, where they have their own things and then they have the Teams drives that they have accordingly. And then he doesn’t even think about downloading and uploading things again. And then it’s very important, I say, I think leadership is also required on their part, for what do we do what and for what do we do what and for what do we not do what. I experience that far too little. I don’t know how it is with you. New systems are introduced and the old ones are not disconnected consistently enough. What is your experience of this?
Josef Pölt
Yes, absolutely. I have it, to take the example of our app again. Was it so clear, how do you start? Then we just pulled it over from the bulletin board, so we simply looked at various Notes databases. We had a list at the time, we had somewhere around 370 Notes databases. I can see all the tiles and so on. And then I can already see how… and then we finally went over and I told you in no uncertain terms, you have 14 days, I’ll let the system run in parallel for 14 days and then the other one will no longer exist. Period. A big rebellion, a big shouting match, to be honest. In the meantime, or it went on for a short time and then you just saw that it worked. It was important for us, so many employees still use it at work. So the system doesn’t just run on mobile devices, it’s also an app at the workplace. Of course, most of them use it at work, which I can understand and which is fine, I don’t want to have anything on my private cell phone, but we have a 40/40/20 solution. So I’m going to say 40 use it hybrid, 20 only via the app and 40 on the computer, which actually works quite well and you just have to be consistent. And that is something that is not the case in many cases. People are used to this old way of working. I’m going to put it gently and say, oh, I’ve still got five years until I retire, so nothing will change. And now I can say whether anything will change in five days. It’s just that the pace is increasing. We can also see that on our internal side that we no longer get releases from Atruvia like we used to, where I say there’s a big release twice a year and then we roll it out and with preparation it takes three months and with follow-up it takes three months, but now it’s just permanent, bit by bit, something goes in and I have to constantly adapt. That has advantages and disadvantages. But I am also of the opinion that you simply have to make software in such a way that I limit these possibilities as much as possible. I can see this in our core system when I look at agree21, where all our processes are programmed and so on. Now we also have a second platform with the omni-channel platform and the banking workspaces. And the employees are finding it incredibly difficult to connect the two, because I have the problem that the new platform will of course not be as full as the old one. In other words, I go to something new now, it looks a bit nicer, suddenly you have widgets on the workspace, quite nice, and then I press something somewhere, boom, I end up back in the old system, because there is simply an interface here, so to speak, because the functionality is not there in the new system. That’s okay in a certain way, but we’re already seeing very clearly that employees are saying, why should I even see the new system if I’m going back to the old one anyway? So we have to try to connect this world in such a way that certain things no longer work in the old world but look better in the new. Yes, it really is a challenging task because it is very complex. But we’re trying right now. And the first attempts in the last two weeks have been quite successful. We have copied the new world into the old, so to speak. That actually works. In other words, what was previously a call in the old world with the old masks and so on is suddenly a call into the new world. So I take the opposite approach and then it works. And then the employees slowly see the advantages that are there. It’s simpler, more stylish, a bit faster, even if it’s not yet fully developed. I spoke to Atruvia about it just last week and said that it’s nice when you give a widget with the customer’s contact details, then there’s a phone number or email and then I press it and nothing works. I can’t understand that. Yes, that’s still to come. And then I say yes, but probably not in my time. But yes, it’s planned and you can see that I’m always such a friend, if I use MVPs, as Fiducia always says so nicely, then at least if I use one, I have to have thought it through. So it has to be complete to some extent. It can’t be the case that we have installed softphones everywhere for our employees, for example, then it should actually be feasible. I press it and then it rings.
These are the little aches and pains you have. But I can also understand it on the other side. I’ve been on the advisory board of Atruvia for 24 years now, which is still a Bavarian data center. I even work as an advisory board member. I’ve been involved in two mergers, if you like. And of course it’s a powerful system in principle. There’s an incredible amount of data in there and so on. And converting that into a modern world is certainly not easy. But it is…
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, you are also a very intensive iPad user. Where do you see potential applications in the bank or where do you use it personally?
Josef Pölt
So we use, well I use almost exclusively, I have to be honest. I hardly use the computer any more. The computer is really only my, yes, I say that when I really need to break something out of the workplace, i.e. call up a customer and so on. There’s nothing like that on the iPad. So we use it as normal for video conferences, but also for collaboration. So we currently have around 80 people, 85 people, who have managed devices, where it helps me a lot. We have a 100% subsidiary of Atruvia, Peras, and with its GENO HR personal suite, Peras has created a system that can also be used on the iPad, for example. It works really well. This means that I can manage my entire personnel master data, all my calculations that run through it, right down to simple vacation approval, sick leave, etc., all via the system. It all runs via the system, it’s all mobile. You’re very much on the move. Of course, sometimes it’s things like that, very banal things, like annotating a PDF or something. That works really well. We also use DP Board, for example, which tells you something. (Thorsten Jekel: For the work of the Supervisory Board.) Yes, we don’t just use it for the Supervisory Board, we actually use it on the Management Board too.
Thorsten Jekel
Also great. I always recommend it. If I already have it, please also use it for confidential documents and a lot together with the board.
Josef Pölt
I introduced it at my old bank, I think it was before the 2012 version, and I was certainly one of the first at Schillbach to do so. And I don’t want to boast now, but I know that it arrived in the cooperative sector through me, because the Atruvia solution was significantly more expensive. And then I said to the person in charge at the time, look at this, it’s a good thing, we’ve been using it for four or five years and it’s working. And they then recommended it to many banks. And I know that many, many are on it. Simple system, uncomplicated, a few nice gimmicks with this PDF creator, the jump labels and so on, they do that quite well. And for us, the standard work is used by the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, I also think it’s a good point to say that I experience far too few of them. They have it for the supervisory board work. What’s even more extreme is that they then have a brainloop, which is a whole lot more expensive, but then only use 3% of the possibilities and use it exclusively for supervisory board work instead of also using it for board matters. Great for that, of course. Do you also use iPads in corporate customer sales?
Josef Pölt
We’ve now started to get a few people… so we’re currently looking at the issue of iPads versus convertibles. So we have employees in the corporate customer area who have convertibles in the corporate customer area who have convertibles and we have some who are equipped with iPads. At the moment, it’s still better on the convertible side because of the connection in terms of Agree and so on. That’s just the way it is, you can do more. However, I believe that this world will grow together to some extent if you have the new OKP or Banking Workspace throughout, if you have handled the processes there, then I don’t think it will be a problem. And you have to, I’m always a bit catty now, but corporate experts are not necessarily the most technically inclined. I’m always careful. We have a few who are doing quite well, especially when it comes to presentation purposes and so on. Of course, it’s a great story when you show that off. You can actually always connect to the systems at the customer’s premises and say that I have a screen, we have also equipped them with the appropriate technology so that they can also attach themselves to a television or something else, simply to make a big presentation. The presentations are going quite well. We also have the option of converting them to PDF and then you can take them with you. And in the rarest of cases, we have now found that they actually need the core banking system directly at the customer, so to speak. Because the customer usually has online banking, if he wants to know something, he can look in there and the many things you need for it, if you have credit data and so on today, that’s okay, but mostly they are first called up, set up and then there is a so-called visit report, which we create via PDF. He can show it better on the iPad than on the convertible. But as I said, that’s a difference that will develop over the next year or two with the Atruvia, yes. So if it becomes more widely used, so that I can use the iPads, then yes.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, yes, great. Another topic that is currently on everyone’s lips is AI, artificial intelligence. I always say, firstly, that I prefer common sense five times over artificial intelligence. But I believe that the combination of the two will have a lot of potential. Where do you see potential applications for AI in the banking sector?
Josef Pölt
So for me, I see it by writing speeches. Yes, very well. I took a very close look at it again last week, tried two or three things again, and with a bit of reworking, so to speak, it works quite well. I think we tried something on the subject via Banking One. My son, who is responsible for smart data and so on, does a lot of things there. But we weren’t always happy with the results. It was fun once, but we tried out a use case a while ago where we really threw 50,000 pieces of customer data into it and so on. And the result was, for example, against the background of what additional products you can sell, the strange thing was that every customer who fills up twice a week at Shell buys a home loan and savings contract 100% of the time. I don’t know how that comes about. But it was an interesting topic. For us, it really is like that, I think the topic of learning from data is something that will be very important in the future. Two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, I was in Karlsruhe at Atruvia, where we were given a short presentation on the topic. They tried out a simple use case here, for example for asking questions when opening an account. Sure, then they connected ChatGPT to the website with the FAQs and something came out, but nothing satisfying. And above all, what is not satisfying for me is that I get the text, well, you have to go to the bank application or the website and there you can open your account or something like that. Sure, it’s a text generator, but I actually want to have the workflow in there. So if I’m going to ask something like that, then I need to at least automatically get a link that says I can go there, I can click on it and continue. I think Atruvia is still a bit in its infancy when it comes to AI. We are approaching it cautiously, because there are also concerns about whether it will be too smart, or whether it will develop independently. I think that’s the case for us, because of course, I wrote my thesis on the subject a long time ago and the first sentence was “Banks are gigantic data graveyards”, which is also true. And we make far too little of the data. So if I take what we make out of it, I’m going to say an independent financial intermediary, he asks very different questions, he gets everything and so on and so forth and then sells more under certain circumstances. I think there’s an incredible amount involved. And then certainly also on the process side. So I think that there will also be a lot of things where we can massively scale down, where it’s not us who decide whether we design the process this way or that, but the AI, because it says okay, we can throw out the interfaces, we don’t need that and so on. I believe there are many use cases that can be used.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, absolutely. That’s how I see it too, and if you look, you already have a few online players. I’ll say, I always call them the fintech snot spoons, you’ve already mentioned them. As a board member of a Volks- und Raiffeisen Bank, where do you see the future differentiation? What is your main strategy as a board member of a VR Bank, that you say, how do we stay relevant compared to all the online players, the big and the small niche players that are entering the market? How will you manage to be successful in the future?
Josef Pölt
So what we are finding is that the issue of regionality still plays a role. It’s not that I have to have branches everywhere all the time and so on. But the topic of contact persons, i.e. assigned customer advisors, etc., is still important. But specialization is also still in demand. We are already noticing, let’s take a very banal example, mortgage lenders, that we are getting significantly more platform business in the meantime, so the question is of course also whether we want that from outside. This is not quite so easy in a regional system. There are now banks, Hoch Taunus for example, that operate nationwide. We don’t have that yet. We are still trying to achieve this through regionality, through direct customer contact. And we’ve already noticed, for example, that people are no longer afraid of video advice. Not in principle. We were forced to react quickly since we were almost the first in Germany to have the first coronavirus case directly via one of our branches. We also managed to switch over 240 workstations to mobile within six weeks of the first case. So fortunately we were early. So the video issue is going quite well. But if I look at it in relation to the direct consultation with the customer, whether it’s at home or in our bank, in the branch, then we can still see very clearly what the customer wants. That’s what we actually ask them. And if we take a look at the current situation. We have now experienced an interest rate shock, let’s put it that way. So within twelve months, let’s just say that things have shot up. Of course, the other providers are now coming back with corresponding conditions. Of course that hurts us on the one hand, but it’s not yet to the extent where we realize, oh, the customer is generally only willing to look at the conditions, but it depends a lot on how we support them. I believe that this is the cooperative model par excellence in principle. So the BVR is also working on the topic of regional ecosystems, trying to immerse itself in the customer’s world through living environments. Whatever they are called, I’ll say that now. So, of course, the whole issue of real estate is one of the main topics. But I also think the whole topic of health, insurance, etc. will be very, very important. That will be a very, very important part. And the whole thing has become so complex in the meantime. A small proportion of customers can do it themselves. But many can’t. And then, of course, there’s also the investment side, but also the credit side. If you look today at what you, well, we have now had or are still having a big debate about the Heating Act. If you now take a look at how complex the whole thing is when you consider funding channels, etc., many customers are very quickly overwhelmed. Many customers are very, very quickly overwhelmed. And that can’t really be done in a direct bank because I don’t have this contact. And it doesn’t work on the website alone either, because I can’t invest directly in a KfW in principle. I have to go through a bank. So that’s why it’s a bit of a niche policy, I’ll say, but we’ve had this niche policy for a very long time, but it’s still very successful. We are growing every year, in some cases. In the lending business, for example, we’ve had double-digit growth for three years now. So it can’t be that bad. But I always look at how we have developed new business models. We just received an award from DZ-Privatbank. We launched a real estate pension five years ago. You wouldn’t believe it, but here in Lake Starnberg, we actually have a lot of people who have expensive houses but no money. And of course when people inherit here and so on, these are huge properties, incredible assets, they cost money. And if people don’t have the money, we don’t offer them the uncomplicated way the big players do. So the house is almost gone when you sign the contract. No, with us, the house always stays with the customer and we always take the heirs with us so that we can discuss with them how to do it. Very uncomplicated, very advantageous for the customer. And these are things where I think you can do a lot. We even offered it nationwide for a short time or put it on our website. Then we had inquiries from Hamburg, Düsseldorf and I don’t know what else, because our partner DZ didn’t even offer it here yet. In principle, they then developed this model together with us, are now offering it nationwide and we are very successful.
Thorsten Jekel
Exciting. I also always say that the most important thing is relevance. Just like many retailers complain about Amazon or many cab drivers about Uber. When I look, sorry, if you also offer a bad service, then you don’t have to be surprised. And when I look, I live here with my wife in Berlin in Brenzlauer Berg. We have lots of small stores. For example, I have a small but very well-stocked store for audio equipment within walking distance. If I need a plug or adapter or whatever, I go to him. And because I know he knows exactly which adapter I need and so on. Or in Hamburg, for example, there’s a ladies’ boutique that I love because it doesn’t have any men’s clothes, but they have a sofa right in the middle. There’s something nice to drink there. There’s an Auto Motor Sport, a Men’s Health, the kind of things that we men like. And the nice thing is that when my wife says, “I like that,” I don’t even have to get up, because I can see the whole boutique from the sofa. Very, very cool. This thing has nothing to do with digitalization, but with relevance. And I think that’s why I always say relevance before frills. I don’t think digitalization for the sake of digitalization is a viable business model, but the idea is to say, where can I connect relevant services for my customers in the region and possibly even nationally. That’s why I’m always happy about it. I think it makes perfect sense to use this niche model to say, okay, where can I create value for my customers? That’s why I also see this in other regional banks, which, if they do it right, are very successful. I say, if they do it right.
Josef Pölt
Yes, once again, you won’t be able to keep every branch open. We actually see it in our biggest branch, our KDC. We are now somewhere around 350,000 calls a year in the KDC. And the nice thing is, when you talk to the ladies and gentlemen, most of them are ladies, but I’ve had a few with me from day one, so they’ve really been with the KDC for six or seven years now. In the meantime, they have acquired their own customers, their own customers, yes, I would have said soon. In other words, customer loyalty. They always want to talk to them because it simply works well. We’ve expanded it to include a meeting service. We also do this via video. And we’ve also installed a video service in some branches, and I think there are now six or seven, so that there are no waiting times. This is partly due to the shortage of skilled workers. We can no longer get people to work in the service department. That’s actually the case here. Unemployment is of course extremely low at 2%. And the 2%, they don’t want to work in German, which is why you have to look at lateral entrants today. However, we have had very, very good experiences, especially in this area. They are friendly and courteous, they have learned that somewhere. I always say that the best thing was my best service saleswoman, who was a shoe saleswoman. It didn’t matter to her whether she was selling a red or a blue shoe, and it was the same on the bank side. Ultimately, she served the customers well. That’s actually the important thing. Of course it will change. We already notice when we look at our topics, when we look at our analyses, who still visits a bank and so on. It’s easy to see that we’re now at 60 percent online share, slightly above that. Either I come to a certain topic.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes.
Josef Pölt
Because I need something from the advisory side, ATMs, well, sometimes still, in the meantime many people pay by cell phone and so on. I think I make 99 out of 100 payments with my watch. In the meantime, even my baker can. Yes, yes, I never have two. I actually have all the Apple Watches still at home starting from one. I always take the odd numbers. But ultimately it’s an issue. It was partly acceptance, especially with the small amounts. Corona has certainly done a lot to make companies rethink. It’s also working quite well in the meantime. My wife does the same, for example, and actually only pays by bank transfer. Not because I can now only look at what my wife spends. That’s not my concern at all. But it’s simply uncomplicated. That’s always the nice thing. And I say, especially with older people, it’s just that I’m back at the customer’s today at lunchtime, I’ve converted them from Windows to Apple. So, in the meantime, he has a large 27-inch Mac. He has a MacBook, an iPad, a watch, and he’s already 82 years old.
Thorsten Jekel
Like my father. He’ll also be 82 this year, and he’s also full of jokes.
Josef Pölt
And some things are just nice when you, yes, this is not someone who is good at computers. I’ve set up a lot of things for him. He actually spends seven or eight hours a day on the stock market. And he’s still a bit of a day trader at 82, very, very cool. And now he’s slowly getting to grips with the systems and how some things work. I’ve shown him the video bells and so on. And the interest is definitely there.
Thorsten Jekel
Not a question of age.
Josef Pölt
No, it’s actually not a question of age and I’m noticing more and more that people are dealing with simple topics like video calls and so on, especially between children and parents and so on, they’re somewhere in a completely different area and it works quite well, even if they were previously afraid of contact. It was the same with my father, for example. He was afraid of contact, he knew his way around the PC a bit, but not much. And at some point I gave him my old iPhone and then he always did it on video and he thought it was cool. I think the time is… There are no more people anyway. The last time I actually took the train was to Berlin. I wanted to try it out by train. In the meantime, it’s almost quicker from Munich than by plane.
Thorsten Jekel
Just under four hours with the Sprinter, that’s madness.
Josef Pölt
Somewhere around 30 or 50 and they were on time to the minute.
Thorsten Jekel
I no longer fly to Berlin Munich either. So I travel by train.
Josef Pölt
It was very interesting to watch people sitting on the platform and then older women talking, two iPhones next to each other. Look, I’ve got my ticket on there and so on. So I found it exciting, I must honestly say, and fascinating, because I like to look at what’s going on around me. And I can also find out a lot of things for us, let’s say, for our business model, where I can anticipate a bit, just to see where the journey is going.
Thorsten Jekel
Super. I think that’s a wonderful ending, although I could go on talking to you for hours and we’ll continue to do so offline, because we like to combine offline and online. So on that note, thank you very much, dear Josef Pölt, for an inspiring round with you. It’s always exciting. I think we were also good enough not to ask the data center to let us publish this. So these are the people from Atruvia who are listening in. I think we were also aware of the fact that, on the one hand, we are healthily critical, always, let’s say, connected, but always constructive, and that together, let’s say, what one person can’t do, many can. I always like this cooperative motto.
Josef Pölt
To be honest, my attitude is that I try to live these standardizations and so on. I always try to switch off second and third and fourth systems in favor of Atruvia. And I’m an advocate, because there’s no other way. Yes, it’s a bit too slow for me. That’s actually the only thing.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, but you are in good company with the tax consultants with the DATEV data center or, I believe, your colleagues in Frankfurt from the private banking sector, who have similar challenges with their IT. But it’s all the more important to do this with a brain. And in this case, I would like to say thank you very much. Have a successful week. See you next time at “Switch on the brain first, then the technology”.
Yours, Thorsten Jekel
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