BNP Paribas Fortis launches Assist, a free smartphone application for emergencies. Assist is a smartphone application whose purpose is to provide help and guidance to both BNP Paribas Fortis clients and non-clients alike whenever they find themselves facing an emergency situation.
The application can be downloaded free of charge from the Android Market. An iPhone app will soon be available as well.
Assist provides practical assistance to smartphone users in four respects:
- Information: When caught in an emergency, the user receives clear, step-by-step guidance on what to do. In addition, those clients who have a Europ Assistance contract via BNP Paribas Fortis or have taken out an insurance policy with BNP Paribas Fortis will be informed as to exactly what assistance they can count on. This means that the assistance provider – Europ Assistance or TeleClaims – will be able to move into action as quickly as possible.
- Damage Claim: The application enables the customer to file a claim for any damage caused to the car, house or other possessions directly to the Teleclaims service of AG Insurance – which means that the claims handling process can begin immediately.
- "Come and Get Me" button: The user simply pushes a button and his/her current location is pinpointed with a link to Google Maps and sent by email, SMS, Facebook or Twitter. This will for example enable a young person to alert his/her parents late in the evening in order to get a lift home but it will also serve as a help line in a real emergency - for instance for a person living alone who is suddenly faced with an unexpected problem at home.
- Other Useful Tools: This range of useful aids includes a list of emergency services phone numbers in 120 countries, a pocket flashlight equipped with SOS signalling and Morse code message capability, etc.
The great advantage of this smartphone application is that it covers around a hundred different types of foreseeable emergencies, ranging from loss of a bank card to a road accident, not forgetting such eventualities as a flooded cellar. In these rarely-encountered but serious situations, a client may easily be overcome by stress and it is at that moment that s/he needs to have clear, precise information at his/her fingertips. This is exactly what Assist gives you: for every emergency scenario, the app provides a step-by-step action plan using smartphone functionalities such as quickdial, geolocation, etc. Smartphone users generally carry the device around everywhere with them, which means this is the ideal communication channel for obtaining emergency assistance.
The Assist service clearly reflects the promises made by BNP Paribas Fortis to be accessible wherever and whenever the customer happens to be and to provide clear information.
Following the success of Mobile Banking, the SPOT and Bill4Friends smartphone apps and the iPad-based magazine UltiMag, BNP Paribas Fortis is now widening its range of services for smartphones and tablet computers.
BNP Paribas Fortis Executive Board member Peter Vandekerckhove underlined that:
"BNP Paribas Fortis is a highly innovative Bank, which seeks to make full use of the latest technologies in order to provide its customers with first-rate professional services at those moments in their lives when they really need them."BNP Paribas FortisDate: 21.12.2011