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Category: Digital Transformation

Three Reasons Financial Institutions Are Losing Out to FinTechs

Financial Services | Digital Banking | Digital Transformation | Open Banking | Technology Architecture

Three Reasons Financial Institutions Are Losing Out to FinTechs

June 16, 2022
Fintech

…And How to Keep Up with Digital Natives 

by Bob Paajanen and Charles Payne

The way we bank has changed forever. While FinTechs have the latest technology innovations, what they don’t have is decades-worth of relationships with customers and large swaths of Big Data. Financial institutions need to recognize this advantage, leverage their data, streamline processes, and thereby empower their relationship managers if they want to compete with their new-age rivals.

Mismanagement of Data

Most financial institutions have multiple customer-facing systems that operate in their own silos. As many as 50% of banks and credit unions state that they have trouble accessing their internal data. Without a single unified view of their customer, banks and credit unions are unable to collect, process, or indeed deploy insights that will enable them to cross-sell products and services to their customers.

The services gap left by financial institutions is especially felt in commercial banking where FinTechs are sweeping up SMBs with targeted products and quicker access to funds. A prominent example of this trend is Shopify, which started out as an e-commerce platform, but is now the tenth-largest provider of financial services to SMBs. Another example is Stripe, which has created an end-to-end lending API (application program interface) as its next offer to SMBs.

Paper-heavy processes, and disparate data management systems are some of the major causes of this issue. As the finance industry moves toward open banking, it is imperative that financial institutions unlock the value of their data and translate it into actionable insights so they can improve their languishing businesses.

why financial institutions are losing out to fintechs
Source: 11:FS ‘Fintech filling services gaps’ Designing digital financial services that work for US SMBs 

Lack of Efficiency

A 2019 Gartner report estimated that process automation, including document processing, could save financial institutions 25,000 hours of avoidable work per year. With advances in technology in the last three years, it is not hard to imagine that this number may have gone up even further.

Most of the productivity loss mentioned above has been attributed to human error. This is hardly surprising when many financial institutions continue to use paper-heavy loan origination models. Without automation, document processing is rife with efficiency and security issues including document mishandling, collaboration on email (generating multiple copies of the same document), versioning issues, loss of time to find the documents when required, a lack of compliance, and a lack of remote access.

Since the pandemic, consumer expectations have changed dramatically. Close to 60% of customers today are open to completing their mortgage applications entirely online without support on the phone or in person. Even more pressing than the platform, is the need for speed, with customer satisfaction falling 15 percentage points for approvals that take longer than 10 days.

With unprecedented demand for mortgages, financial institutions must speed up intake, underwriting and decisioning processes faster if they want to keep the customer’s business.

Costs

Inefficient loan origination processes lead to rising costs. On average, loan origination costs $7-9k per application. That is over and above the cost of productivity loss, estimated to be $878,000 (for 25,000 hours lost per year) for a company with a 40-person finance team. This cost is invariably passed on to the customer who may end up paying higher fees and charges compared to what they might pay if they opted for a non-banking entity.

rising cost of loan origination

The FinTechs Are Coming… And how to slow them down

As a result of service gaps and inefficiencies, customers from both commercial and retail banking have been veering towards nonbanking entities for loans. 50% of Canadian SMBs in 2021 felt that they couldn’t maintain their growth strategies “due to a lack of capital.” Today, nonbanking entities, account for more than 70% of total originations. By using automated processes and digital interfaces, non-banking entities or FinTechs are 25% cheaper than the industry average and can deliver a decision 30% faster compared to other financial entities.

In the age of Open Banking, it is important that financial institutions update their legacy processes and unlock the potential of their data if they want to survive.

The automation journey begins with intelligent document processing. Blanc Labs provides a 360-degree IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) solution that can:

  • Automate workflows for document collection, digitization, and analysis
  • Replace manual effort through intelligent data capture
  • Connect with third party data providers for analysis and insights
  • Analyze document data, provide status alerts, and flag fraudulent entries
  • Secure documents in a drop box
  • Deploy on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid model

Book a demo or discovery session with Blanc Labs to learn about the impact of our IDP solutions for banking. 

Why Banks Need Intelligent Document Processing

Financial Services | Banking Automation | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Automation | IDP

Why Banks Need Intelligent Document Processing

June 2, 2022
IDP for Banks

By Charles Payne and Donald Geerts

In the last two years, we have witnessed a consumer engagement revolution. The pandemic has seen a rush toward digital channels in all facets of life, including the banking industry. The need for instant gratification and round-the-clock support means that lenders must process customer or broker requests faster while balancing security, compliance, and risk management. Data released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) suggests that in the first half of 2021, the mortgage industry in Canada saw its fastest growth in the last 10 years. Given the rising demand of the market, the “need for speed” in the loan origination and decisioning process is at the top of the list.

Staying ahead of the competition requires a digital transformation that often begins with intelligent document processing as the first step. Financial institutions must partner with the right intelligent document processing (IDP) solution provider that will deliver both speed and accuracy to meet consumer expectations.

why banks need intelligent document processing

Tedious and time-consuming processes

The process of mortgage approval or renewal involves many, many documents. Before a mortgage is even approved, a mobile mortgage lender must collect and organize documents (sometimes handwritten), send them to various personnel in the financial organization to be vetted, and finally return to the customer with a yes or no—a process that can take up days or weeks. If a bank takes too long to respond to a borrower, they may turn to offers from other lenders. Such a situation is easily avoided with the help of intelligent document processing. Once a document is received, the right IDP program can classify it, extract data from the document, and store the data in a way that is accessible around the clock, not just to employees of the lender but to RPA (robotic process automation) processes as well. If additional documents are required, the RPA process can notify the mortgage agent or borrower. If the application is complete, then the RPA can send the data ahead for auto-decisioning. Using IDP in combination with RPA can ensure a quick turnaround on an application without consuming too much time.

Organizations with no digital document processing reported 10x more at-risk customers and 2x more at-risk revenue compared to other companies. (Forrester, 2020)

Inability to scale

One way to address the growing demand for mortgages is to hire, train and retain more employees. However, increasing the size of the team may result in a higher time to value (as new employees will take time to ramp up to desired levels of efficiency) and increased costs too. Lenders can benefit from IDP solutions that may be scaled up quickly with a marginal infrastructure cost.

Just digitization isn’t enough

Many lenders today receive applications through mortgage portals. While the first step of digitization of documents is taken care of, banks do not follow through to ensure the proper classification, extraction, and storage of these documents. As a result, an employee must still go through the documents to verify and authenticate their contents to ensure they are adequate for an application. It is no surprise that knowledge workers lose 50% of their time preparing documents and therefore, experience a 21% loss in productivity because of document issues.

Security and risks

Worldwide, the digital fraud attempt rate grew by 52.2% in 2021 compared to two years earlier. Banks or financial institutions that do not have intelligent document processing capabilities may be caught off guard or may not be able to respond in time to stop transactions. IDP, on the other hand, can reduce the incidence of fraudulent transactions by assessing large volumes of historical data accurately and in real-time. By identifying the patterns, an automated system can immediately flag a suspicious transaction and stop it if necessary.

KYC is another area where IDP software can help by minimizing human error. The IDP program can read submitted documents, verify the identity and details of the customer by searching through data repositories and even assign them a risk score, thereby helping the lenders meet regulatory standards.

Unaligned with consumer demands

Unsatisfactory products and fees, slow response to problem resolution, and a lack of convenience are some of the top reasons why financial institutions are are losing out to FinTechs and digital-only banks. One of the biggest contributions IDP can make is to automate repetitive manual tasks and free up lenders employees’ time in activities that will increase customer satisfaction—building trust & rapport and enhancing product offerings.

Automate document processing with Blanc Labs

There are many reasons why banks need intelligent document processing, and Blanc Labs provides a 360-degree IDP solution that can:

  • Automate workflows for document collection, digitization and analysis
  • Replace manual effort through intelligent data capture
  • Connect with third party data providers for analysis and insights
  • Analyze document data, provide status alerts, and flag fraudulent entries
  • Secure documents in a drop box
  • Deploy on premises, in the cloud or as a hybrid model

 

Book a demo or discovery session with Blanc Labs to learn about the impact of our IDP solutions for banking. 

Customer Centricity As The Essence Of Digital Transformation

Financial Services | Customer Experience | Digital Transformation

Customer Centricity As The Essence Of Digital Transformation

May 19, 2022
Customer Centricity As The Essence Of Digital Transformation

by Abhijit Chakravarty

Digital Transformation may well be one of the most overused terms among the C-Suite, business consultants, and the industry overall. It is an axiom that increasingly falls in the category of being painfully cliché, but the fact of the matter is that the term isn’t about digital technology. It’s less to do with technology and more about organizational transformation and change management with human capital at its core.

The fourth industrial revolution is all things Meta with its blurring lines between the real and digital worlds. Characterized by augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), it has created a fundamental shift in the way we will conduct business. The power now is truly in the hands of the new-age customer, who decides when, where, and how they will transact.

While the “customer is king” moniker has always been around, thanks to new research, we are now able to see exactly which factors in a digital transformation correlate with being a financially successful company, and why indeed, companies should care about digital transformation.

Source: Harvard Business Review

A recent study by Deloitte found that more digitally mature companies see higher gains in customer satisfaction, gross margin as well as long-term gains. With customers at the center of the digital transformation, more digital maturity can lead to better net revenue and net profit margin, as seen in the graphic below:

Why is this? The answer is that digitally mature companies can add value for their customers. Deloitte identified seven digital pivots, listed below, which successful organizations made, with customers at their center. As a result, they were more agile when it came to responding to customer demands (products and services), improving customer relations (being culturally relevant and bringing diversity and inclusion), or enhancing customer experience (seamless transition between mobile and in-person experience and 24/7 support). These successful enterprises were also able to adapt their business model and boost innovation.

Pivot 1: Flexible, secure infrastructure

Pivot 2: Data Mastery

Pivot 3: Digitally savvy, open talent networks

Pivot 4: Ecosystem engagement

Pivot 5: Intelligent workflows

Pivot 6: Unified Customer Experience

Pivot 7: Business model adaptability

The business and financial impact of a digital transformation centered around the customer is not lost on the C-suite either. Companies with higher digital maturity see benefits across cost reduction, increased sales, and better customer lifetime value. According to this report by KPMG, as many as 67% of CEOs agree that the agility provided by digital transformation is “the new currency of business; if we’re too slow, we will be bankrupt.”

Digital transformation’s real purpose is about empowering the server (business) and the served (customer). In coming years, we will see businesses re-imagining, growing, and transforming themselves by placing the digitally empowered demi-gods, a.k.a the customer, at the epicenter. The alternative, unfortunately, is worse.

At Blanc Labs, we understand that every organization’s needs are different. This is why we offer advisory and consulting services to understand your unique issues and get you started with your digital transformation journey. Book a discovery call with us to learn more.

Challenges in Digital Lending

Financial Services | Banking Automation | Digital Transformation | IDP | Lending Technology

Challenges in Digital Lending

May 12, 2022
Digital Lending

Digital lending has evolved over the last ten years and the pandemic has only exacerbated the need for intuitive, enjoyable, dynamic, and accessible lending systems for both lenders and borrowers. In the age of Apple and Amazon, borrowers demand a seamless experience that does not involve speaking to a human being or filling out paper forms.

While traditional banks and monoline lenders are overhauling their systems to address these challenges, FinTech companies are making use of the gaps left by the big banks.

The Era of Digital Lending

According to the Canada Banker’s Association, 49% of Canadians do their banking digitally, but more importantly, 75% of Canadians intend to maintain the digital banking habits they picked up during the pandemic. Compared to five years ago, FinTech companies in the US today account for more than 38% of the personal loan space. Traditional banks, on the other hand, saw a loss of 12% of the personal loan space during the same period.

Why is this? The reason is a lack of simplicity, speed, and accessibility.

Leading FinTechs today can provide multiple quotes within minutes and fund loans within a matter of day. Apart from speed, online lenders today offer a seamless, fully digital experience as well as advanced features including security and risk assessment that does not involve a long-drawn-out credit check process.

                                                                   U.S. Digital Lending Platform Market Size

Digital Lending Challenges Faced by Lenders Today

Creating a fully automated, digital-first lending solution can be a complex process, especially if you don’t have the right tools and automation in place.

Automated self-service, compliance, fraud and cyber-security, document processing are just some of the many challenges that traditional financial institutions must overcome to match the experience offered by FinTechs today.

Here is our point of view on some of these key challenges:

1. Complicated and Slow Loan Origination Process

Can you think of living in a time before same-day delivery or tap payments? Neither can borrowers.

Companies that don’t offer instantaneous loan decisions run the risk of losing their customer to a FinTech that is faster and can provide quick decisions. Relying on antiquated loan origination processes that require filling multiple paper forms, visiting the bank in person, and taking days to evaluate risks and make funding decisions, will spell trouble. One study shows that 42% of respondents abandoned their applications because the process was too long and complicated, and 62% said they were unsatisfied with the digital experience, due to “too many touchpoints” and “the necessity of going to a physical location.”

Nimble FinTechs on the other hand are assessing credit risk and offering funds at the speed of light. One study by Smarter Loans found that 53% of respondents received their funds a mere 24 hours after applying for it, “suggesting that same-day-funding is becoming a standard in the industry.”

Thankfully, banks can implement digital native loan origination platforms that can automate the end to end loan origination process;  or they can address bottlenecks in it like underwriting, which will make the process more streamlined for both borrowers and lenders.

2. Partial measures instead of end-to-end solutions

Delivering an end-to-end solution is a mammoth task that needs significant resources and time.   The world of lending is full of large projects that took twelve to eighteen months to deliver value and this is not going to disrupt the FinTech community. Success for this is now measured in mere months.  Moreover, automating one part of the customer journey and ignoring the rest can cause more complications in the long run and can re-introduce manual intervention. Instead of a piecemeal approach, consider a unified lending solution with a modular structure that addresses all steps from information collection to underwriting, servicing, and reporting.  It is important to get the end state vision right first and then you can make incremental changes building towards your best customer journey if you elect to do things in recommended phases.

3. Document Intake and Data Storage

While traditional banks and brokers have been busy processing loans through paper-based or hardwired systems, FinTech companies are using automated processes to process loans faster and more transparently. Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) can automate the document intake process and apply AI (artificial intelligence) plus ML (machine learning) to extract data with more accuracy while converting unstructured data into structured data, making the data more useable. This can save you money and reduce human data entry error.  In most cases, this data can be prepopulated into origination and adjudication engines to drive faster straight-through processing and time to decisioning the loan.

                           Productivity loss due to manual document management

4. Data Silos and Lack of Personalization

During a digital transformation project, it is important to design the system in a way that the multiple components within that system can speak to each other and convey relevant data. If for some reason this does not happen, then it simply consumes more time—time that can be used for strategizing and planning. With so many systems in  silos, banks may not get a true 360-degree view of their business with a customer, therefore making it difficult to create personalized offers and recommendations for that customer. Ideally, banks should have a unified, transparent view of deposits, loans, and personal accounts if they want to keep the customer engaged and cross-sell new lending products over time to grow their share-of-wallet.

5. Regulations

Borrowers that come through the digital lending channel hand over a lot of sensitive information and so it makes good sense that lenders hardwire a regulatory compliance framework into their platform. Luckily, there are experts that can help business leaders stay on top of banking regulations and data privacy laws. The regulatory environment is rapidly changing and new industry driven changes around Open Banking are emerging as well. These dynamics are going to redefine and further embolden  FinTechs, drawing clear lines around how the participants in the banking ecosystem will work together.  Full assurance on regulatory reporting and compliance with industry standards is table stakes in any solution that meets this demand.

A Unified Lending Solution for Lenders

Blanc Labs provides a three-stage approach for digital lending which includes:

– Consulting assessment of your needs

– Streamlining processes and platforms

– Intelligent documentation processing (IDP)

Book a demo or discovery session with Blanc Labs to discover the impact of our digital lending solutions.

The Three Rs of Automation Discovery

Technology | Banking Automation | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Automation

The Three Rs of Automation Discovery

April 29, 2022
Automation Discovery

By Saurabh Bhatia

Before you begin the process of automation at your company, you need to check for the Three Rs of Automation Discovery which will ensure the long-term success of automation implementation. In this article, we will look at:

Automation Discovery’s 1st R: Reimagine the vision

Automation Discovery’s 2nd R: Return on investment calculation

Automation Discovery’s 3rd R: Reusing Automation

Why are The Three Rs of Automation Discovery so important?

 

So you’ve decided that you want in on the automation game. Great! Now you’re in the all-encompassing process of discovery and implementation. This is where you, the organization that is looking to adopt automation, needs to articulate your business needs, asses how automation will impact your operations, and then determine a successful implementation roadmap with your tech partner. Here are three components, “The Three Rs”, that should guide your approach towards a successful discovery and automation implementation.

Automation Discovery’s 1st R: Reimagine the Vision

Begin by reinventing the way you look at your operations and its processes. It goes without saying that you should start with standard process automation first to demonstrate its value. But during the discovery phase, explore all tools that will compound the value of automation for your organization. For example, if you are looking to automate the mortgage lending process, take a step back and examine the added benefit your organization will get from adding power BI dashboards or analytics systems that provide more actionable insights or discovery tools which identify which other processes and tasks could be automated.

Keep in mind a vision of an organization fueled by hyperautomation as you explore various options in addition to standard process automation namely, intelligent document processing, business intelligence reporting, process mining, chatbots, etc. There is a full stack of options you can explore to heighten the benefits of technology and establish that future state of hyperautomation.

Automation Discovery’s 2nd R: Return on Investment Calculation

Understandably the most common driver in decision making is about the returns you will see with the option of automation (or any other technology solution). Determine how you will calculate ROI prior to beginning work on the solution. We recommend creating a business case with a very clear prioritization matrix and roadmap of automation and its benefits. This will determine the focus both long term and short term.

Pro Tips:

  • Determine which licenses and automation tools are most useful and cost effective for the overall solution
  • Adopt licenses and tools and build your infrastructure to support the scalability of automation (and sunset those that are no longer in use)
  • Don’t forget, to consider monetary metrics which deeply impact the business in your calculations

Automation Discovery’s 3rd R: Reusing Automation

Some organizations feel like they’re starting from scratch every time they introduce a bot to their processes. In reality, you reutilize some parts of your previous assets (from one bot to another) to make automation faster. For example, if you have multiple processes, teams and departments using the same application or program, we encourage you to create reusable assets with the first bot so when you introduce a second bot, you are reutilizing the same assets with the same application or program. This fuels enterprise scale adoption as a team or functional area and can demonstrate the value of automation to other departments, which will encourage further adoption of the technology.

Pro Tips:

  • Divide your projects into components and create reusable libraries, which makes it easier to reuse automation for further processes
  • When designing the bots, focus on smaller components within them but always keep in mind how this will affect future projects in a positive way

Why are The Three Rs of Automation Discovery so important?

  1. By reimaging your vision, you create a collective, growth oriented and collaborative mindset within the organization as it pertains to digital transformation
  2. The right ROI calculations help you determine which processes will garner better returns both short term and long term
  3. Reusing automations also makes your implementation scalable with faster adoption across teams and departments

Automation is transforming the way we run businesses, transact, and engage in the world. The key to achieving our vision and maximizing the possibilities of technology in our organizations is rooted in having the right approach. And the three Rs in automation is great place to start.

Find out more about enterprise automationbook a meeting with us today to see how we can accelerate your digital transformation journey.

The Human Effects of Hyperautomation: Redefining processes and business models

Technology | AI | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Automation | IDP

The Human Effects of Hyperautomation: Redefining processes and business models

January 31, 2022
Hyperautomation

Now more than ever the phrase “amid chaos lies opportunity” should be resonating with business leaders.  This is not a time to hesitate but rather a time to adapt and move swiftly. The world has changed and those who can adjust quickly will come out on the other side stronger and with a greater market share. Herein lies tremendous opportunities.

According to the 2021 Gartner Board of Directors Survey, “69% of boards accelerated their digital business initiatives in the wake of COVID-19 disruption. Almost half anticipate changing their organizations’ business model as a result of the pandemic.” We live and breathe in a digital world. To stay ahead of the competition, serve our customers better and in the way they want, to grow market share while moving faster and more efficiently, companies must look to technology for assistance.

Robotic Process Automation is dead, long live Hyperautomation

I say this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the automating of simple, rule-based tasks, and is an excellent starting point in digital transformation. However, as many companies start down the path of transformation, they soon find that they need more than just the automating of tasks; they need to be able to make sense of all the data that they have accumulated and have stored in dispirited backends and repositories.

Hyperautomation is a revolutionary approach to maximize the benefit of digital transformation to enterprises.” Hyperautomation is the application of advanced technologies such as RPA, Artificial Intelligence, (AI) Machine Learning (ML), and Process Mining to augment and automate processes, enhance the use of analytics in ways that are more impactful than traditional automation.”

Keep in mind that Hyperautomation is not just the bringing together of several technologies; it is the reimagining and redesigning of the entire business model. It is a continuous effort redefining the value you are bringing to your end user and redefining the business models that support those initiatives. In addition, according to Forbes, “Every day we create roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, and that number is growing at an exponential pace.” By applying technology to help you make sense of all your accumulated data you can make impactful and insightful business decisions.

Stakeholders in the Hyperautomation Journey

Reimagine engagement with both your internal and external customers. Your internal customer is the talent in your teams that help you engage with your external customers either directly or indirectly. They are the people you want to help by freeing up their time from mundane and repetitive tasks so that they can apply their creativity and insight to more high-value work. This is the core premise of the ‘digital workforce’. The common definition of a digital workforce is digital tools and technologies that enable your teams to work smarter. They are not encumbered by an office or legacy systems to accomplish their tasks and goals. Providing talent with a digital workforce that can work alongside them doing the tasks of copying and pasting data from one repository to another, as an example, will free them up and improve their productivity and morale.

Managing business processes old school—manually and email-based—can make tracing key information difficult. Executed well, the deployment of a digital workforce should result in humans refocusing their available time to pursue innovative growth strategies and finding new ways to improve the external customer experience.

As for the external customer, the journey has and continues to change at a dramatic pace. If we look at our world today, smartphones grant us access to information, forge connections and transact at the palm of our hands, live streaming has opened up our world of consuming content, crowdsourced GPS provides the fastest way for us to reach our destinations, ride sharing has transformed transportation (as will large scale adoption of self-driving technology), short term rentals have disrupted the way we plan travel – and the list goes on. The commonalities in all these examples are the instant gratification and personalization that they provide. Thanks to digital-native companies, customer expectations have changed too. Customers expect to engage with you seamlessly, with speed and simplicity.  They demand a highly personalized experience and interaction with proactive recommendations and offers. If your legacy processes cannot provide that experience promptly, you run the risk of losing that customer to a savvier competitor.

Hyperautomation can enable that level of personalization by predicting customer needs and accommodate the instant gratification of information and service through prescriptive engagement – all powered by artificial intelligence.

Where to next?

It isn’t enough to simply automate existing processes. Look at that big picture and long-term view and think about how automation (today) and hyperautomation (soon after) is going to transform your business. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

  • What am I trying to automate?
  • What types of data do I need to use today and what would I need for decision making in the future?
  • Can I reimagine my business model with hyperautomation in mind? What is that vision?

 

Once you’ve asked yourself these questions and are on your way to creating that redefined business model, begin layering automation onto it and then introduce the concept of hyperautomation to the plan. With this long-term view, you will create additional value in your customer base and with your teams. This isn’t just about updating a legacy system; it’s about redefining and evolving your business to stay ahead of the curve.

Hyperautomation in the path ahead

Each year brings with it new market opportunities and scope for growth. The goal of every forward-thinking leader will always be to find ways to empower their talent and enhance the customer journey of their products and services with the mission of sustainable growth. Adding Hyperautomation with ML and AI to the right processes connects disparate data sets, eliminates inefficiencies, lowers lead times, reduces process times, provides greater customer insights and experiences, and results in more empowered and productive team for that brighter future.

We think it’s time to get rid of the swivel chair. Let’s talk about how we can help you on your automation journey. Explore our experience with enterprise automation and let’s accelerate your organization on its digital path.

Decanting Digital Transformation with Equitable Bank