It not only has a refreshed brand identity and logo, it also has a new corporate colour – teal – to represent trustworthiness and reliability.
Along with the new look, the bank has also introduced the promise of “a better life within your reach”, according to a report in Marketing Interactive.
“We want to move our identity from being seen as a ‘kampong bank’ to an urban bank that is actually comparable to other commercial banks,” it quoted Frederick Siew, deputy chief executive of corporate support at BSN, as saying.
“Without a change in internal processes or improved service level, the rebranding will backfire on us eventually as well. Consumers are not going to come to our bank based on our brand’s colour. In our industry, it all boils down to service.”
The report said that even after more than 40 years in the market, BSN was mostly seen as a “rural bank for Malays” and that it had long struggled to resonate with Malaysians of other backgrounds.
That perception is slowly being changed, said the report. BSN has already made inroads into the Chinese community and is now targeting urbanites.
Siew said the Chinese at one time thought of BSN as a bank for the Malays and shied away.
Knowing the Chinese demographic in Malaysia was not fully funded by the government, the bank entered the Chinese schooling and education system, said the report.
Through carnival-like initiatives in the schools and garnering support from companies to raise money for the schools, the bank won over the trust of the Chinese consumers.
“In the past, the Chinese consumers would think of BSN as a bank looking to take their money. But through helping them raise funds, we were slowly, but surely able to change the perception,” he said.
This resulted in a 30 per cent growth in terms of enrolment from Chinese school students from 2014 to May 2016, the Marketing Interactive report said.
Even within the Malay demographic, the bank found it difficult to connect and gain the trust of the Malay affluent. All that is changing with its new thrust.
Last October, in revealing the corporate branding, BSN Chief Executive Adinan Maning said the bank had transformed its operations to serve its growing customer base and improved its network and service points to provide better access to its banking services.
“We have also expanded our reach through agents in more locations nationwide to bring access to more Malaysians in more areas across the country,” he was quoted as saying by The Star.
BSN has over 7,000 employees across 401 branches nationwide, serving over 9.1 million Malaysians with retail deposits amounting to RM14.7 billion as at July 2015.