More Than a Number: OTP Bank & Banza — From Complexity to Simplicity
In the world of finance, internal processes often resemble an iceberg. Customers see only the tip — a sleek mobile app. But “underwater” lie hours of meticulous work, great responsibility, and multi-layered tasks.
OTP Bank, one of the market leaders and a member of a strong European banking group, has long made digitalization one of its key priorities. The bank has experience implementing agile approaches to project management and agile teams, and has launched a modern mobile app offering a wide range of convenient features and services — from utility payments to online charity auctions featuring exclusive lots.
That is why the bank was looking for a partner to help take its business process digitalization to the next level. Banza, an IT company, became that partner, creating a strong synergy that resulted in the implementation of two key portal solutions.
- → Internal processes require a separate corporate portal for employees
- → A dedicated portal for working with corporate clients
- → Complex and separate processes
- → A single internal corporate portal for employees
- → External portal for corporate clients
- → Radical streamlining of processes in two areas
COLLABORATION MODEL: EVERYONE DOES WHAT THEY DO BEST
- This project is a great example of how to effectively divide responsibilities between an external partner and the internal team. Banza was responsible for launching the portals based on its proprietary Banza ePortal framework. At the same time, the bank’s Creatio Competence Center handled the necessary configurations and customizations on the Creatio side — the system with which the portals have native, out-of-the-box integration. No duplication, no blurred responsibilities — and the bank liked this model so much that it became a template for further collaboration.
- Banza ePortal is a framework for building personal accounts, customer or partner interaction portals, as well as internal corporate portals for employees. Before being put into production at OTP Bank, the product underwent a full compliance review against the bank’s requirements and received confirmation on all points.
DIRECTION 1:
The new OTP Planet is a corporate portal for employees, built by Banza on the Banza ePortal framework. Its main goal is to increase the engagement of 2,000+ employees in corporate life while strengthening their loyalty and satisfaction with the company as an employer.
A unified digital workspace
The portal integrates with the Creatio electronic document management system via SSO authentication, as well as with Service Desk and IDM—this way, tasks and notifications from all systems are consolidated into a single “My Tasks” windowGamification and corporate culture
The “Thank You” recognition and appreciation system, with its individual and overall statistics, has transformed the portal into an internal network where everyone’s achievements are visible in real time. Future development plans include a store offering merchandise redeemable with earned pointsA personal account instead of stacks of paper
In their profile, each employee can view their job title, tenure, presence/absence status, remaining vacation days, and their direct reports and managers in an interactive organizational chart. HR processes—such as vacation requests, business trips, OKRs, and recruiting—are accessible directly through the portal thanks to a seamless integration with Creatio, configured by the bank’s competence centerNo-code for HR
Business administrators (HR managers) can independently—without involving developers—create new pages using the page builder, post news, publish announcements, launch surveys, and analyze their results. The HR team is also responsible for collecting and analyzing general statistics (views, likes, activity)DIRECTION 2:
Corporate Portal — an external portal for legal entities. In parallel, Banza launched a new web portal for corporate banking customers built on the Banza ePortal framework — available 24/7 to any legal entity, even if it is not yet a bank customer.
Corporate lending, including agribusiness. The portal allows users to request a preliminary financing decision and complete a loan application. Customer identification and document signing are handled via electronic signature. Following a positive decision, the system automatically generates an application with parameters relevant to the respective business area, including Agribusiness or general SME, and enables its signing with a qualified electronic signature (QES).
Creatio integration is at the heart of the process. The portal transfers applications to the bank’s Corporate CRM based on Creatio, the bank’s master system, configured by its internal competence center. Creatio processes applications, assigns a customer manager, and returns statuses to the portal, ensuring the full decision-making cycle without data duplication or manual data transfer between systems.
Remote account opening. A company representative can submit an application to open the legal entity’s first account. After entering the EDRPOU code, the system automatically retrieves the company’s data from YouControl and pre-fills the application. The user only needs to add missing information, select a servicing branch on an interactive Google Maps interface, and upload identification documents. The portal also integrates with Diia.Sharing to obtain identification documents and securely transfer them to the bank. After submitting the application, the user immediately receives the account details and can track the application status in real time.
Video verification without queues or calls. Legal entity representatives can book a convenient time for video verification directly from their smartphone. Available slots are aggregated in real time from bank managers’ calendars. Once confirmed, the system automatically generates a Zoom link and sends it to the customer along with a video verification guide. The functionality is available both to new potential customers and existing bank customers when account representatives change.
Digital maturity isn’t about how many developers you have. It’s about how quickly you can adapt and how effectively you build partnerships. The key lesson from this collaboration is that success happens at the intersection of a powerful product, the client’s internal expertise, and a team that understands business needs.
Digital transformation has long ceased to be a separate project or technology initiative for OTP Bank. Today, it is an integral and important part of our development strategy and daily operations, and we see it as the future. The OTP Planet employee portal and the corporate customer portal have become a natural continuation of the bank’s digital transformation. We strive to create services that not only simplify interactions between employees or between customers and the bank, but also help make decisions faster, save time, and deliver a high-quality customer experience. That is why we will continue investing in the development of our digital ecosystem.
The OTP Bank and Banza case proves that in 2026, it’s not the company with the largest workforce that wins, but the one that has turned bureaucracy into a measurable digital asset. Today, the bank is already preparing the next step — a fully digital office for legal entities, where opening an account, getting financing, or setting up acquiring will be as simple as ordering a coffee.
