George Qorus Banking Innovation Awards 2015 - Winner

George is the new digital banking platform by Erste Bank and Sparkassen (Savings Banks) in Austria. The digital revolution has lastingly changed many sectors. Now it is reaching banking as well. New payment functions, money transfers over social networks or financial services in the form of apps not only change one's personal financial life, but also represent an enormous challenge to the classical retail banks. Banks must react, but how? Therefore, Erste Bank und Sparkassen are pursuing a vision: to make life easier with intelligent and adaptable technologies and to make financial services not only simpler, faster and less complicated, but to imbue them at the same time with a personality. Our answer to fast changing digital markets has a name: George. George isn't just online banking with a polished-up user interface. George is to be understood as a system that thinks for itself and continually grows, an intelligent and flexible banking personality, which adjusts to its customers with elements that can be individually combined. George is absolutely unique in the Austrian market. In terms of design and usability we no longer lag in any way behind the internet giants. George’s vision is to be an ecosystem for custom-made solution to improve all aspects of the financial life of our customers. Therefore, the ability to build your own personal George by adding smart personal plug-ins is essentially innovative. By mid-July we have onboarded almost 300.000 users in Austria.