THE SLOVAK subsidiary of AXA Bank Europe launched commercial operations in early April when it began offering savings accounts to Slovak customers as it has been doing in the Czech Republic since early 2010. The bank started its technical preparation for offering accounts in Slovakia in October 2010, the SITA newswire wrote.
AXA Bank Europe offers retail loans and mortgages in some countries but it does not plan to offer these products in Slovakia at the current time. Petr Skok, CEO of AXA Bank Europe in Slovakia said the bank would introduce only savings accounts in the first phase of its operations here.
AXA Bank Europe is part of the AXA Group based in Paris, a leading global brand in insurance, investment services and banking.
AXA Group’s CEO for Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Dušan Doliak, specified that in its first year of operation in the Czech Republic it had captured almost 1 percent of the market in that country and that it had the ambition to reach a market share of over 5 percent within five years. Doliak admitted that it would be unrealistic for AXA Bank Europe to reach the same market share as giant banks but said this is not its aim.
The Slovak subsidiary of AXA Bank Europe will use the internet as its principle means of communication with customers. The bank was enrolled in Slovakia’s Commercial Register on December 1, 2009 and the National Bank of Slovakia issued a banking licence on October 6, 2010.
