“The bank has been using blue, black, and white cards for six years, and we wanted to update their appearance. Looking for ideas besides the new design, we also decided to rethink the ease of use of the cards,” said the head of private banking at Coop Pank Rasmus Heinla. He added that most bank cards have a horizontal orientation, but people use and store them mainly vertically: “We insert them vertically in ATMs and payment terminals. That is why we in Coop Pank decided to meet the needs of users and, unlike other banks, issue cards in a vertical format.”
Coop Pank will introduce bank cards with the new design gradually. From April 17, private and business customers will be issued debit cards with a new design, and at the next stage, new credit cards will be issued, too. “The gradual replacement of cards is important since we want to use up existing stocks first. In this way, we will avoid creating unnecessary waste,” Heinla said.
All existing Coop Pank bank cards will remain valid until the expiration date indicated on them. Upon expiration, Coop Pank will send the customer a card with a new design by mail.
Heinla said that in addition to ease of use, the catchy and fresh look of the new cards was also very important to Coop Pank. This is why the development of the design was commissioned by a young talented Estonian artist Holger Kilumets. “Since the format of a bank card as a sort of canvas provides a rather limited space, we wanted to give the artist as much creative freedom as possible and the opportunity to present his work on the front of the card in an authentic and clean manner. For this reason, we have concentrated all the information about the bank card on the reverse side. At the same time, this step also makes using the card more convenient and natural,” Heinla explained. On the back of the new Coop Pank cards, the card number, expiration date, holder’s name, CVC security code and the number of the bank account associated with the card are indicated. In addition, the so-called loyalty number is printed there, with which you can register your bank card, for example, as an Alexela customer card.
Card designer and artist Holger Kilumets added that he liked Coop Pank’s idea that the card that we carry with us every day can and should look bright and individual: “I think we have succeeded in this regard and will delight users with cards with a new design.”
Kilumets said that since the graphic design of the new bank cards is pleasingly minimalist and most of the information is placed on the back, he felt free to create: “I like to use certain geometric shapes and carefully selected combinations of pure colours. From the font of the Coop Pank logo, I was able to borrow some slightly asymmetrical curved shapes that I brought into the design elements. It was the creation of abstraction in photographs that fascinated me most here, as it seems to work against the nature of the image. The boundary between reality and abstraction interests me as a creator since it provides certain tension and charge. I try to create and to feel this barely perceptible boundary through balancing compositions, supplying the images with dynamics and imaginary movement”.
Estonian-owned Coop Pank is one of the five universal banks operating in Estonia. The number of clients using Coop Pank for their daily banking is 152,200. Coop Pank aims to put the synergy generated by the interaction of retail business and banking to good use and to bring everyday banking services closer to people’s homes. The strategic shareholder of the bank is the domestic retail chain Coop Eesti comprising 320 stores.