Associação Portuguesa de Bancos opens new website

31st January, 2011

Associação Portuguesa de Bancos (Portuguese Bank Association - APB) has just opened its new website with new contents and functions and user-friendly browsing. The website is designed to meet its goals of informing and educating the public on the role of banking in the economy and fostering a closer relationship between banks and society.

The www.apb.pt home page shows the APB's main news and highlights and a calendar of events in the sector. It offers access to the bank branch network in Portugal, to the association's training institutes and the seven main site areas: APB, Members, Financial System, Getting to Know Banking, Study Centre, Financial Education and Find out More.

The APB area contains information about the association, its history, its governing bodies, its statutes, the Portuguese Bank Training Institute, a calendar of events and a press room with press releases, interviews and articles published by its chairman, a multimedia area and EU press releases.

The Members area has information about current members, their contact information, a summary of their activity and direct links to their websites.

The financial system area describes its main characteristics, players and supervision mechanisms, among others. It also contains a compilation of legislation on the most common bank products for users and customers.

The Getting to Know Banking area offers easier access to generic information about banking and includes the branch networks of all APB's member banks.

The Study Centre contains the APB's publications - Information Bulletin, Six-monthly Summary and Revista da Banca magazine (with a table of contents of all published numbers) and information about national and international public consultations and papers presented at APB conferences and seminars.

The contents of the Financial Education area include articles about financial literacy by different bodies: APB, members, supervisory bodies and European institutions. The idea is to compile educational information that is of interest to the general public, teaching them how to use financial products and services and announcing projects promoting better quality of service in all banking areas.

Finally, the Find out More area provides constantly developing information about banking: such as opening accounts and deposits, using bank cards and other financial products.

Development of the website

Our website was developed by WayNext (www.waynext.com), the web agency that submitted the winning bid, and involved designing a completely new layout, content structure and functions. It has a back office for regular content management.

The programming language for the technical architecture is PHP and MySQL is used for data support. The website is optimised for 1024 x 768px resolution. The quality of the XHTML production guarantees smooth operation and appearance in the most common web browsers.

The website's design was based on W3C Consortium level 1 accessibility rules to facilitate access to the information by means of different internet devices and for users with special needs.

This renewal of the APB's web presence reflects its new proximity and a more involved role in society.