5 Key Digital Transformation Benefits for Business & Commercial Banks

Starting and maintaining a positive business relationship can’t be understated. With global market disruption coupled with a change in customer expectations, Banks are seeking ways to create better client experiences, from initial onboarding and throughout the relationship lifecycle.

Leading Business & Commercial banks will adapt their organizational structures and operating models to provide clients with the products and services tailored to their needs. They will effectively balance the continuation of providing high-touch relationships with the client’s preference to have more self-service capabilities. In comparison, lagging banks will stick with rigid structures, antiquated technology, and labor-intensive processes, limiting their ability to react quickly to changing client needs.

According to a recent market study by McKinsey, banks using technology to transform customer experience have increased customer satisfaction by 20% and reduced cost to serve by 20 to 40%.

Achieving transformation can be difficult, but achievable for those Banks who are adapting to the market dynamics and bolstering their digital capabilities. Below are five benefits leading Banks have experienced by investing and driving transformational efforts:

1. Drastically Improved Customer Experience

When clients are repeatedly asked to submit paper forms, re-enter information that is lost in business silos, or attend face-to-face meetings to verify their identity, the overall experience is massively impacted. Banks are now moving toward the use of new technology to provide a frictionless experience. Digital Client Channels are used to empower customers to update their own data and documentation at any time. The use of ID&V technology can make face-to-face verification a thing of the past and accelerate account opening, reducing abandonment rates. Integration with eSignature capabilities allows banks to capture authorized signer information and manage documents to reduce costs and accelerate transaction and onboarding times.

2. Competitive Advantage

Customers are now very knowledgeable about what a good customer experience looks like, thanks to the common use of mobile apps and client-facing solutions. The user experience standard is no longer determined solely by direct competitors but is now dictated by the user experience of apps like Facebook and Amazon. Now, it takes more than just an app to equal a good digital strategy. Banks that embrace disruptive technology and invest in creating a better experience for their employees and customers will be seen in the market as innovative rather than a laggard. And for banks that are slow to adopt, they run the risk of their customers leaving them for challenger banks.

3. Omni-Channel Customer Interactions

Lengthy email chains that explain requirements and status request updates put a strain on customer relations and results in a high risk of clients abandoning the onboarding process before it can even begin. A Digital Channels approach removes the dependency on email exchanges and lets banks interact with their customers in a way that suits them best (mobile, online, call center, or branch). Customers are also enabled to start an application online and continue it on another channel if they prefer. This multi-channel approach allows banks to extend the same strategy across business lines and geographies to create a consistent, reliable process that delivers the greatest customer satisfaction.

4. Cross-Sell / Up-Sell Opportunities

Digitalizing and automating processes within a bank has added benefits beyond the improvement of the technology itself. Automating manual processes and re-allocating headcount to value-adding tasks opens the door for more product innovation within the bank. Improving the customer experience then allows the bank to continue to provide excellence for their customers and stay on top of market trends. Keeping customers happy with streamlined straight-through processing workflows saves on operational costs while also allowing banks to pursue further cross-sell / up-sell opportunities.

5. Future-Proofing Against New Regulations

Business rules are often managed via complex excel-based forms or checklists. This leads to high error rates of up to 65%, increased compliance risks due to human fallibility, and poor user experience. Using a dynamic rules engine can orchestrate the entire customer lifecycle. Information such as KYC requirements can be gathered at the onset and reused at any time, which means clients aren’t asked for the same information multiple times. For commercial and business banks, this automation has the added benefit of allowing them to focus more on their customers and less on regulations and conflicting requirements.

In today’s digital-first society, can banks afford not to digitalize onboarding? Thankfully Fenergo and our global partners are here to help.  

A digital Client Lifecycle Management solution provides a standardized and transparent ecosystem to onboarding, that elevates the client experience while directly strengthening the organization’s operational efficiency.   

Learn more about how Fenergo digital onboarding solution here.