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thirdstream and Blanc Labs collaborating to bring intelligent document processing to financial institutions

Posted on 25 October 202225 October 2022

Document understanding and data extraction are keys to accelerating account opening and supporting underwriting of new retail and commercial accounts.

thirdstream, a leading provider of retail, commercial and credit card onboarding services, deployed with over 40 Canadian financial institutions, today announced a partnership with Blanc Labs, a trusted technology innovation partner to leading financial institutions. The collaboration injects Blanc Labs’ Intelligent Document Automation (IDA) onto thirdstream’s platform, extending existing services to include a proven solution that removes up to 80% of manual document reviews, thereby improving the customer and member experience.

“Our goal is to help our clients continually improve the experience for applicants and account holders. Our partnership with Blanc Labs leverages our Platform-as-a-Service, where our clients will be able to spin up the services Blanc Labs has already deployed with leading financial institutions, reducing the reliance on employee reviews of documentation,” said CEO Keith Ginter. “For those already using the thirdstream platform as part of their onboarding process, Blanc Labs’ Intelligent Document Automation (IDA) helps remove up to 80% of the manual document reviews and results in considerable improvement of the customer experience.”

Automated document understanding and data extraction are some of the keys to moving faster, especially when onboarding new commercial deposits and retail lending customers. thirdstream and Blanc Labs present a structured series of steps to deliver starting with the moment of customer engagement to data extraction using artificial intelligence from each page of documentation. This eliminates the need for the manual entry of data, with complete and accurate data presented as part of the decisioning and account creation experience.

“Our services today address challenges across the financial ecosystem. Together with thirdstream, we’d like to offer faster time to value realization with our solution. Blanc Labs’ Intelligent Document Automation eliminates manual intervention and creates a compelling value proposition for banks, financial services, and insurance institutions. By increasing operational efficiencies, banks can focus on creating additional revenue streams and provide greater value for the end customer,” says Hamid Akbari, Blanc Labs’ CEO.

thirdstream and Blanc Labs help financial institutions deploy new products and services faster – a key consideration in today’s economy – as they build improved personalized services at scale. Our solution benefits financial institutions looking for pre-integrated innovative solutions that can de-risk and accelerate their modernization and digital transformation efforts.

About thirdstream

thirdstream is headquartered in Lethbridge, Alberta, providing digital account opening solutions, online and in-branch, to over forty Canadian banks, credit unions and trust companies. From identity verification to account funding, thirdstream’s solutions support consumer and business account opening, credit card onboarding, and unsecured retail lending, including adjudication. The thirdstream platform is cloud-deployed, designed for retail and business consumers seeking out financial institutions, and for financial institutions targeting consumers anywhere, any time, from any device. To learn more, visit www.thirdstream.ca.

About Blanc Labs

Blanc Labs is a preferred partner for enterprises looking to digitize and build the next generation of technology products and services. To help companies rapidly deliver on their digital initiatives, Blanc Labs has developed expertise and bespoke solutions in a wide variety of applications in financial services, healthcare, enterprise productivity, and customer experience. Headquartered in Toronto, Blanc Labs serves the Americas through operations in Toronto, New York, Bogota, and Buenos Aires. For more information on how Blanc Labs is building a better future, visit www.blanclabs.com.

Articles

Developing the next generation of talent at Blanc Labs’ Digital Academy

In August of this year, we launched the Digital Academy at Blanc Labs, where 100 students in Colombia had the opportunity to learn from our experts on topics that we consider key to our business.

The students that joined the program as Associates, gained knowledge of fundamental concepts of agile methodologies, cloud computing, full-stack development, and RPA (Robotics Process Automation).

The Digital Academy community recently shared their top takeaways from this experience.

Promoting a culture of learning at Blanc Labs

“Walking alone through the world of technology is not easy. I am sure many of us have encountered some barriers, such as not understanding what we hear in a video tutorial, or you end up having lots of questions. When we are reading the technical documentation, it may become even more complex. These situations make me appreciate my technology education teachers and the people who share their knowledge with me,” says Gustavo Camargo, a Software Engineering Associate, who is committed to achieving his dream of working in the IT industry.

Martin Bec, who shared his experience as a Full-stack Developer in our latest bootcamp, says: “Teaching and sharing knowledge is part of my lifelong learning way of living. I encourage others to clear up their doubts and I appreciate the opportunity to learn. My own learning approach significantly affects how I lead others to strengthen their career in IT.”

Working in technology requires a combination of technical skills and soft skills

By being exposed to various virtual collaboration opportunities, students work on their communication, relationship-building, teamwork, and cultural awareness skills. One of their main challenges is to overcome the language barrier, identifying how to strengthen their learning in a second language in their spare time and the IT top skills they require for a booming professional career.

“With agile methodologies, I learned that good planning is key, and I apply that thinking to my personal life. Fulfilling projects requires perseverance, coherence, and the team’s motivation to continue. There may be changes along the way, but the agile methodology is flexible with this, and you learn how to prioritize your work and focus on progress”, says Jennyfer Belalcazar, Systems Engineering Student.

According to a Gartner study published in March 2022, an agile developer must master methods, techniques, behaviors, and various fundamental aspects of Engineering.

Methods such as Scrum and Kanban, implementing Agile pilots, pivoting, and adjusting the strategy, and evaluating risks and results for the business, are highly valued
Understanding metrics, and User Stories are essential to promote feedback with stakeholders and gain in-depth knowledge to overcome project challenges
Customer focus, continuous learning, and collaboration significantly impact interactions and work styles
The adoption of best practices, and the importance of test-first thinking, are fundamental for execution. The incorporation of agile architecture and the training of Database Administrators with a set of multidisciplinary skills impacts Agile teams’ performance

As complementary activities to their learning experience, Associates have created sessions to strengthen their conversational skills in English and they engage in activities to improve their personal brand and prepare for job interviews.

As Associates evolve in their learning experience, they gain the most valued skills in this industry. Most students combine their Digital Academy experience with technical education, short courses, and other IT programs, particularly in development, programming, and Data Science.

Building a culture of learning, fostering technology education, and empowering our team is fundamental to the success of our projects.Discover how Blanc Labs can bring an agile and strategic approach to your digital transformation project. Get in touch.

Articles

How Canada’s largest independent brokerage used Blanc Labs’ expertise in Intelligent Document Processing to speed up their time to market

Canada’s largest independent online brokerage had an aggressive target date to launch and debut its residential mortgage product to originate loans through an in-house, proprietary Point of Sale (POS) software application. The POS solution needed to collect loan application data and documents from the borrower and co-borrowers.

The challenge was to buy or build the document automation layer of the solution in a short period of time.The online brokerage had limited internal resources to build the solution and needed a technology partner with experience in building digital lending products. The chosen partner needed to either bring its own intellectual property or build/integrate with required FinTech components.

Blanc Labs’ Expertise In the Canadian Mortgage Industry and Intelligent Document Processing

Ultimately, the online brokerage chose to leverage Blanc Labs’ expertise in the Canadian mortgage industry and intelligent document processing in order to collaborate on the design of a total solution and the development of its components.

Apart from achieving the technical and functional feature set defined for the online brokerage’s document automation, the project resulted in:

Accelerated time to market
Lower Cost of Ownership
Futureproof Technology Architecture
Better User Experience
Enterprise Level Document Management

Want to know how? Download the case study!

News

Blanc Labs CEO Hamid Akbari Speaks On What It Takes To Scale Up Successfully

Posted on 7 October 20227 October 2022

You don’t have to be a #Fortune500 company to start thinking strategically about the future of your business. Technology services firms that commit to strategic methods and sustainable growth mechanisms early on can experience exponential profitability.

The way forward is not always clear, but technology services firms can take it one step at a time. Hiring great people, adapting technological breakthroughs, and staying connected with the needs of their customers all contribute to success.

In this podcast hosted by Collective 54, our CEO, Hamid Akbari, talks about what it takes to scale up a company in today’s competitive landscape.

Curious to learn more about Blanc Labs? Get in touch.

News

Blanc Labs and Axway partner up to provide integrated open banking solutions for all

Posted on 5 October 2022

Axway (Euronext: AXW.PA), a leading provider of open banking built on the Amplify API management platform, is proud to announce its partnership with Blanc Labs, a trusted financial service and healthcare innovation partner.

While the largest banks are already well along their digital journey, many others are still tasked with competing in what can feel like an uneven playing field. Financial institutions must have a clear strategy for implementing, governing, monetizing, and marketing APIs to ensure a frictionless customer experience and better business results.

“We want to help all banks – anyone who has something to bring to the table – to strategize and compete in the open banking arena,” said Eyal Sivan, Head of Open Banking at Axway. “They will thrive as they embrace open APIs, build on trusted customer relationships, and meet their customers’ needs wherever they are.”

“At Blanc Labs, we help our clients achieve extraordinary results by accelerating their digital transformation journey,” says Blanc Labs CEO Hamid Akbari. “APIzation will enable secure data interoperability within the financial services ecosystem. Open banking and Banking-as-a-Service pose a disruption challenge as well as a massive growth opportunity for banks and fintechs.”

The specialized solutions offered by Blanc Labs together with Axway make API integrations more efficient and cost-effective thanks to universal API management. Benefits of the unified API platform include:

Increased productivity as developers easily find and repurpose APIs, eliminating duplication of efforts
Less technical complexity by unifying and simplifying API services across the organization
Stronger security thanks to a unified, vendor-agnostic view of all APIs
Faster legacy system upgrades through an API-first layer, which simplifies the addition of new services
More robust governance through centralized documentation for multiple developer teams

“Partnering with Axway, a pioneer in API management and the open banking space, is a natural fit for us. Out-of-the-box support for open banking and common data standards will significantly reduce the cost of building next-gen financial services and will accelerate time-to-market for our clients,” Akbari adds.

As banks gain confidence with Axway and Blanc Labs open banking solutions, they can move from optimizing processes and keeping up with industry standards to unlocking new business models, discovering richer customer data insights, and building highly personalized services to delight their clients.

Learn more about the Axway-Blanc Labs partnership and how they can help banks fully participate in the growing open banking ecosystem, here.

About Blanc Labs

Blanc Labs is a preferred partner for enterprises looking to digitize and build the next generation of technology products and services. To help companies rapidly deliver on their digital initiatives, Blanc Labs has developed expertise and bespoke solutions in a wide variety of applications in financial services, healthcare, enterprise productivity and customer experience. Headquartered in Toronto, Blanc Labs serves the Americas through operations in Toronto, New York, Bogota and Buenos Aires. For more information on how Blanc Labs is building a better future, visit www.blanclabs.com.

About Axway

Axway enables enterprises to securely open everything by integrating and moving data across a complex world of new and old technologies. Axway’s API-driven B2B integration and MFT software, refined over 20 years, complements Axway Amplify, an open API management platform that makes APIs easier to discover and reuse across multiple teams, vendors, and cloud environments. Axway has helped over 11,000 businesses unlock the full value of their existing digital ecosystems to create brilliant experiences, innovate new services, and reach new markets. Learn more at axway.com.