Most banks are nowadays focusing on improving the onboarding
experience for retail customers whilst focusing on streamlining the process and
making it more efficient. In most situations however, these banks fall in the
trap of focusing only on the client-facing solution, causing a backlog in the
operational side of maintaining such a constant flow of customers.
This particular Bank has embarked on a major project to be
able to streamline the entire flow of retail customers, starting from the
onboarding aspect (which is purely client-facing) and also the automation in
operational process flows using KYC Portal. Their vision prior to this project
was quite detailed and covered the entire workflow stream of what happens with
retail applications based on triggers and defined rules. A project that took 6 months
to complete, allowing them to offer a more frictionless onboarding process to
their customers without increasing the work-load on their compliance teams.
Focusing on streamlining the onboarding process of retail
customers is a specific task that has an impact on a number of different
operational processes within the bank. We started off the dedicated workshops
with the operational team of the bank, their IT teams, business processing
department as well as compliance. All of whom would be heavily involved
throughout the entire project. The workshops, as well as, the preparation done by
the bank, led to identifying a number of different sectors that needed to be
part of the overall project namely:
- Customer
facing website (onboarding module)
This was an integral part of the project
whereby a specific custom onboarding solution was built and designed in line
with the brand requirements of the bank. A customer facing web portal that
allows the potential retail customer to input their respective details. A
stepped approach that is accessible via any web interface and also fully
responsive for mobile devices. This module guides the user into what needs to
be done and filled. Based on the data being populated the system will prepare
the required banking documentation which is automatically pre-populated with the
client’s data. These documents are presented to the user to be able to review
and sign-off. KYCP has been integrated with a third party called HelloSign so
that throughout the same interface the client can digitally sign the respective
documents. Next step in this process is the online verification, for which we
integrated the system with Jumio. The customers present their identification
documents (e.g. driver’s license or passport) and verify themselves through a
very neat user experience. The user is then guided to the final step which is
that of checking all the details and submitting the application.
- Backoffice
/ Operational and Compliance Teams (KYC Portal)
Once the application is submitted, the
above custom on-boarding solution transfers all the data to KYC Portal as a new
application through the authenticated API of KYCP. The application is received
with all the data that the user submitted including the digitally signed forms,
the audited verification from Jumio as well as all the identification documents.
Once the application is in KYC Portal, the risk is automatically calculated in
real time based on the configuration that the bank have defined. KYCP allows
for all the regulatory process to be tweaked based on their requirements, which
configuration came as a result of the workshops between the respective teams.
KYC Portal has also been integrated with ComplyAdvantage to be able to check if
there are any matches on PEPs, Sanctions and Adverse Media on the client.
Within a matter of minutes, KYC Portal has an entire picture of all that needs
to be known to allow an agent within the compliance team to be able to take a
decision. However, this bank took it a step further and used the embedded
workflow engine of KYCP to automate the decision-making process too. Using the
rules engine in KYCP, they configured the system to be able to process
decisions in an automated way. One of the aspects that increased efficiencies
with this approach was the approval of low risk customers. They set KYCP in a
way that if a customer has been successfully verified by Jumio, the risk is
green (low), the expected documents are signed and there are no matches from
ComplyAdvantage then the respective customer is set to APPROVED without any
human intervention.
- AML team
(Transaction Monitoring Engine)
The bank has also opted for the real time
transaction monitoring engine of KYCP. Thanks to the unique identifier of any
customer being on-boarded this engine is constantly checking for any anomalies
that the AML team would need to be alerted on in real time. This engine will
alert KYCP directly when such anomalies happen and update specific data on a
subject which in turn can have a repercussion on risk in an automated manner.
- Core
banking system
This entire system has been integrated with
the bank's digital core banking solution Mbanq. The integration further
automates processes and instantly benefits low-risk customer on-boarding (which
is usually 60% to 70% of the entire customer base) through strongly reducing
the time of opening an account. Mbanq has uniquely designed its technology to
seamlessly open the account for any APPROVED customer from KYC Portal whilst
significantly decreasing manual procedures.
- Third
party data providers
As one can see from the above description of
this specific use case, this project required integrating with various third
parties all of which have excellent technologies in their own right and all of
which have APIs to allow for more secured and defined integrations. All the
parties have been selected by the bank to deliver this overall project.
This Bank has embarked on a challenging
yet innovative project that is fully focused on offering a smooth onboarding
experience for their retail customers and a solution to streamline the
back-office and operational challenges on maintaining such customer
relationships going forward. A system
that is focused on reducing risk and cost on all subjects.