Mr. Harris: Egg is basically a financial services organisation, created specifically for the digital age. We offer a range of products and services distributed primarily through the Internet, but supported by a telephone and WAP service. We're about to launch a digital TV service as well.
TWST: What have been the corporate milestones?
Mr. Harris: Obviously the launch in October 1998. We launched with a
telephone model, supported by the Internet. The flagship product was the
savings account, which was designed to be a category killer. It took
away many of the characteristics of traditional UK savings accounts. We
offered customers just one, market-leading interest rate on deposits
from as little at GBP1, with no tiering It was a no-notice account, so
it didn't have the complexity 30, 60, 90, 120-day notice structure that
was typical in the UK market. And it came with an interest rate
guarantee, designed to distinguish it from typical savings accounts that
were often launched with very high interest rates, only to be cut as
soon as the banks had achieved their target balances. The next major
milestone came in April 1999. In the six months following the launch of
Egg, we had been very surprised by the number of applications we were
getting via the Internet. By that time we had built up a lot of
customers, and took, what at the time felt like a risky, decision to
switch the focus of the business to the internet. So, in April 1999 we
announced that, in future, all new applications would only be accepted
via the Internet, although we would continue to service accounts via the
telephone and the Internet. Effectively we flipped the model over from a
telephone service supported by Internet, to an Internet service
supported by the telephone. And the customer numbers continued to grow.
By September 1999, the market was ready for the UK's first fully digital
credit card - that is fully digital, end-to-end automated. The Egg Card
turned out to be the UK's fastest-growing credit card since Barclaycard
was launched in the 1960s. It was, and continues to be, a phenomenal
product for us. It was supported with the launch of Egg Shop, our online
shopping mall as well, which is indicative of Egg's desire to put
financial services at the heart of day to day life. During the course of
our research into the Egg Card, we discovered that people were looking
for online shopping to be made easier. The sort of things they wanted
were security guarantees; selection; information ("who are good
retailers?" "who can we trust?"); search engines ("sometimes we just
want to search a product database to find out who's got what and at
what price"); and special offers. They told us that if we could
negotiate special offers for them, particularly on things that we know
they would like, we would be adding real value to the online shopping
experience. So we developed Egg Shop, which now is the busiest online
shopping mall in the UK, and launched it with the Egg Card. That was a
very critical milestone. In March 2000 we launched the UK's first
investment supermarket, which was our first significant move into
intermediation. The IPO in June 2000 was obviously another important
event in our history. Since then we've added a mortgage supermarket and
a general insurance supermarket. We've launched a WAP service and have
developed a digital TV service. We are currently piloting an electronic
wallet, which will allow people the security of being able to purchase
anonymously through Egg Shop and buy with a single clicks rather than
filling in complicated forms.
Tickers included in this excerpt: EGG.L
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