PayKey (http://www.paykey.com), a Social Banking solution provider, today announced that Banco Davivienda has been recognised by Celent as a winner of the Model Bank Award for Consumer Channel Innovation for the DaviPlata digital wallet. Celent is a global research and advisory firm for the financial services industry.  

Recognising that consumer mobile needs and expectations were rapidly changing, Banco Davivienda decided to address the changes in user behaviour as customers were spending more and more time on fewer apps.  To remain relevant and drive adoption, they needed to meet customers at their preferred points of interaction.

With this in mind, Banco Davivienda developed the DaviPlata digital wallet with the aim of ensuring that users’ needs were met, either for unbanked or traditional digital-first consumers. In order to create a seamless and intuitive user experience, Davivienda enlisted the help of PayKey, to provide a solution that allows users to access bank services, directly from the smartphone keyboard. Incorporating this solution into the DaviPlata digital wallet enables users to make payments within any social and messaging app such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Twitter. The solution allows users to instantly transfer money to friends and family through the existing chat interfaces they already use on a daily basis and to bridge the gap between social media use and bank transactions.

“We have seen a huge cultural shift in the way consumers use their mobile phones, and users are increasingly expecting to access companies and services from their smartphones instantly and seamlessly noted Guy Talmi, CMO PayKey. It’s great to see Davivienda has been recognised for its innovation and our ability to really streamline the customer experience.”

“Winning the award has highlighted our success with the DaviPlata wallet and the PayKey Mobile Smart Keyboard™. Davivienda can deliver the ultimate user experience enabling their customers to receive money, check balances, make P2P payments, top up their mobile phone balance, and withdraw money, instantly, from within any mobile application. It’s exciting to see our customer receiving the award and know that we are pushing the envelope on innovation.”

According to Stephen Greer, Senior Analyst at Celent: “The Model Bank Awards recognise how banks are using technology to change the face of banking. Davivienda are a prime example of how an institution can create a compelling bank-branded mobile experience through some of the most popular and oft-used smartphone apps.”

Celent’s annual Model Bank Awards recognise the best practices of technology usage in different areas critical to success in banking. Nominations are submitted by financial institutions and undergo a rigorous evaluation process by Celent analysts. Celent judges submissions on three core criteria: demonstrable business benefits of live initiatives; the degree of innovation relative to the industry; and the technology or implementation excellence.