Beyond Human: AI's Impact on Insurance Underwriting

The insurance industry is undergoing a seismic shift. No longer confined to actuarial tables and manual processes, it's embracing a future driven by data and artificial intelligence. Your next underwriting colleague might be an AI agent, capable of outperforming human counterparts in speed, accuracy, and efficiency.

AI Agents: The New Underwriting Powerhouse

AI agents are transforming the underwriting process in several key areas:

• Enhanced Risk Assessment: Leveraging advanced algorithms, AI agents can analyze vast datasets, including historical claims data, weather patterns, and emerging risks, to provide more accurate risk assessments. This empowers insurers to price policies precisely and competitively.
• Fraud Detection: AI's ability to identify patterns and anomalies in claims data makes it a formidable tool in combating insurance fraud. By detecting suspicious activities early on, insurers can protect their bottom line and maintain customer trust.
• Streamlined Operations: Routine tasks like data entry, policy generation, and document verification can be efficiently handled by AI agents, freeing up underwriters to focus on complex cases and strategic initiatives.
• Personalized Customer Experience: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide instant responses to customer inquiries, improving satisfaction and loyalty.
• Product Innovation: By analyzing customer data and market trends, AI can help develop innovative insurance products tailored to specific customer segments.

The Future of Underwriting: Humans and AI Collaboration

While AI brings immense potential, human expertise remains indispensable. The future of underwriting lies in a collaborative model where humans and AI complement each other's strengths. Underwriters will leverage AI insights to make informed decisions, build strong customer relationships, and drive business growth.

Challenges for Insurance Leaders

Embracing AI in underwriting comes with its own set of challenges:

• Data Quality: Ensuring the accuracy and completeness of data is crucial for AI models to deliver reliable results.
• Model Explainability: Understanding how AI arrives at its conclusions is essential for building trust and complying with regulations.
• Talent Acquisition and Development: Building a workforce with the skills to effectively collaborate with AI requires investment in training and development.
• Ethical Considerations: Implementing AI in a way that is fair, unbiased, and transparent is paramount to maintaining trust with customers and regulators.
• Cybersecurity: Protecting sensitive customer data from cyber threats is a top priority in an AI-driven environment.

By addressing these challenges and embracing AI, insurance leaders can position their organizations for long-term success. The future of underwriting is bright, and those who harness the power of AI will be at the forefront of industry innovation.

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Designed from the ground up to meet the unique needs of the way people live and work today, Oxygen provides flexible banking solutions to both consumers and small businesses seeking modern financial solutions. Since launching in January of 2020, Oxygen has seen tremendous growth and engagement, surpassing 125,000 accounts opened and over a 969X revenue increase. Both the consumer and small business accounts have no minimum balance or monthly fees, are FDIC insured via a partnership with The Bancorp Bank, and come with a Visa debit card that includes cashback rewards on selected everyday spending categories and merchants.

“We are humbled that our investors are putting their faith in us with this most recent round of funding,” said Hussein Ahmed, Oxygen CEO. “This investment not only validates what we’ve built but also enables us to continue pursuing our vision of building financial tools that integrate seamlessly with the digital world of today and delight our customers. We founded Oxygen because we wanted to provide financial services in the same way people interact with technology in their everyday lives. We didn’t see that and believe this led to exclusion for many. This is an important milestone, but we are just getting started.”

The first and only neobank in the US to launch with both the consumer and small business in mind, the company continues to attract investment based on its rapid growth trajectory and highly engaged customer base. From digital natives seeking a better consumer banking experience that rewards them to sole proprietors and SMBs – many of whom are first-time small businesses struggling to manage multiple, variable income streams and like the holistic business banking experience that incorporates tools like LLC creation and expense management and the ability to manage both personal and business finances from directly within the Oxygen app.

“Oxygen is the premier banking platform for today’s digital consumer,” commented Andre Bliznyuk, General Partner of Runa Capital, which led the Series A round. “Their all-in-one banking app serves both consumers and businesses, ranging from tech-savvy consumers who are just looking for a better banking experience to burgeoning entrepreneurs and small businesses looking for digital banking solutions that meet their strict requirements. It’s banking done better.”

In addition to Oxygen’s compelling product suite, the company has cultivated partnerships with top-tier companies like Visa, having joined their Fast Track program earlier this year, while simultaneously building a high-value brand designed to empower customers to “do it their way,” in support of entrepreneurship and free thinking.

Frank Strauss, longtime Deutsche Bank retail banking executive and former CEO of Deutsche Postbank Bank, who participated in the round and will act as strategic advisor, views the company as having the right solutions at the right time, seeing Oxygen as ready to take advantage of a significant market opportunity in financial services. “When I witnessed the customer engagement around the Oxygen platform, I knew immediately they were offering something truly different for consumers and small businesses,” commented Strauss. “What’s more, I’ve been struck not only by the vision but also the ability of the management team to execute quickly.”

The company plans to use the most recent funding round to scale its team, accelerate growth, and continue to build best-in-class consumer and SMB banking products.

About Oxygen

Oxygen is a modern financial platform designed for the 21st century economy – digital-natives looking for a banking partner that understands how they live and work and providing a seamless user experience for both personal and business accounts in a way that makes them feel in their element. Available on iOS and Android, Oxygen users enjoy no monthly fees, no paperwork, early direct deposit, simple transfers, and cashback rewards on everyday purchases from approved merchants. Businesses can easily control their finances with solutions that are elegant, simple and secure. Reject ordinary. Banking for the Extraordinary.

Based in San Francisco, Oxygen is backed by Runa Capital, Y Combinator and other leading fintech investors.

Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank, Member FDIC. The Oxygen Visa® Debit Card and the Oxygen Business Visa® Debit Card are issued by The Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.

Next year will bring even more growth opportunities for digital banks and a remarkable transformation for financial services. But this time around, the catalyst for growth will not be the pandemic, but the launch of 5G.

Digital banking is inextricably linked to mobile phones – and when it comes to mobile money and wallets, the biggest shift in service offerings will come from the next generation of mobile communication.

5G makes it easier for businesses to access cloud technology, and to enable faster development of business and consumer services. The network allows higher density of mobile broadband and lower battery consumption and can process high volumes of data with minimal delay. With more data, innovation can accelerate and speed the process of digital transformation, leading to more products for customers.

As the mobile sector rolls out 5G in 2021, banks and credit unions have to prepare by developing their 5G strategies to compete with their fintech rivals. Otherwise they risk falling behind in the digital economy.

The roll-out of 5G will transform digital banking in the following ways.

First, the speed increase brought about by 5G networks will enable financial institutions to perform more complex processes much more quickly, minimizing waiting times for things such as ID verification for new customer onboarding and loan tracking.

Second, there will be better performance of existing apps and websites. Despite the renewed push for digital because of the Covid-19 pandemic, many mobile banking apps still lag behind when it comes to functionality. Frequent complaints include the slow speed of mobile apps, the frequency of crashing or timing out and the inconsistent performance of face ID recognition.

5G will enable banks to clean up these inconveniences and help them provide a more seamless customer experience.

Third, upgrading ATMs and kiosks to 5G will deliver faster service too, giving people access to their money when and how they want it, in record-breaking speed.

Payments transformation

5G will provide faster and simpler payment options, which will make mobile and digital payments even more appealing to the masses and merchants alike, further boosting usage. This is key to economic growth.

The outbreak of Covid-19 led to an increase in digital payments by consumers, as it offered a contactless form of transaction and unparalleled convenience during the lockdown period. As a result, commerce – especially e-commerce – experienced the boost of a lifetime. This is a market where financial institutions can play a key role in expanding in 2021 with the help of 5G.

Another major advantage of 5G will be its ability for banks to improve proactive fraud prevention and take informed decisions in real time. Processing data, verifying the nature of transactions, confirming transaction amounts and funds availability, consulting multiple data instances in real time, coupled with customer geolocation and merchant ID, will reduce fraud detection errors and false positives, thereby protecting consumers and the bank’s bottom line.

With the introduction of 5G services, 4G will surpass 3G, which also means 3G and 4G will become more affordable to the masses. This will impact mobile and internet penetration, drive greater adoption and minimize the digital divide that exists globally and within nations.

In addition to 5G, the ongoing growth in mobile phone penetration will pave the way for a bigger and more sophisticated digital payments market. E-wallet services will enable mobile payments from a single account, empowering consumers as well as merchants and agents.

Small to medium-sized enterprises that are looking into ways to reopen safely without putting shoppers at risk could also adopt mobile wallets as a solution.

The UK financial sector should remain vigilant about tracking the progress of 5G and to focus on building the right experience for the customer at the right time. The opportunity is too big to ignore – not just for consumers, but for our economic growth.

Author Credit: Evgenia Loginova is co-founder and co-CEO of Radar Payments

The use of digital solutions has been reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic. With the unprecedented global disruption prompting the “work from home” environment, paper-based processes have become impractical, if not impossible.

This “new normal” has had the positive effect of further accelerating digitalization and pushing its importance to the fore. In a recent PwC survey , half of the Middle East’s CFOs indicated that they plan to accelerate automation and new ways of working.

As the importance of progressing to digital capabilities becomes a shared goal, the industry is set to inevitably meet obstacles along the way. The banking sector is challenged by the ever-increasing need to deliver optimized speed, transparency and efficiency; the difficulty in prioritizing where to invest; keeping up with the launch and development of new technologies; and being constantly alert to potential new partnerships in a fast-paced world.

So, what are some of the key emerging technologies that can deliver an enhanced client experience, and how can banks overcome challenges to reap the benefits of the digital age?

Pace of change

Today’s fast-paced digital business world has created a need for fast and efficient domestic and cross-border payments. Banks in the Middle East face the challenge of enhancing legacy systems to achieve faster, more streamlined processes. This has led banks to invest in initiatives like real-time payments and SWIFT gpi.

The Central Bank of Bahrain has made considerable progress to date, with a national electronic payments system now in place interconnecting domestic retail banks and their customers. The value of this system was highlighted during the pandemic, with real-time payments surging. In fact, volumes grew more than in any other country in the past year, increasing by 657 percent. Saudi Arabia has also planned to implement a real-time payments system that will be run by Saudi Payments, a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority.

Elsewhere, the UAE brought in an interim real-time payments solution in 2019 called Immediate Payment Instruction (IPI).

The need for efficiency, cost-effectiveness and transparency in international payments is also crucial, particularly as businesses in the Middle East are increasingly operating cross-border.

SWIFT gpi is making massive strides in addressing the inefficiencies and lack of transparency that previously impeded cross-border payments. And, because the initiative leverages SWIFT’s existing global infrastructure, it can be implemented by financial institutions (FIs) without a significant overhaul of existing bank systems. Uptake continues to gain momentum across the Middle East, with banks in countries including the UAE, Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia participating in the initiative.

Innovative digital solutions

As well as enhancing legacy processes, the finance industry in the Middle East needs be alert to new technologies that will support their clients’ needs. As digital solutions emerge, banks need to re-evaluate their platforms and identify opportunities in order to maintain a competitive edge.

To do this, banks in the Middle East are, for example, increasingly using blockchain, optical character recognition (OCR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their client offerings.

OCR allows images of typed or handwritten text to be converted into machine-encoded text, with content auto-populated into the required fields. With the Middle East having one of the world’s highest smartphone penetrations at 97 percent, a number of banks are investing in OCR technology as the ability to instantly scan and digitalize information with a mobile device becomes more and more attractive.

Meanwhile, AI adoption is particularly strong in the Middle East because of the benefits it can bring in areas such as operational efficiency, customer service, logistics and fraud prevention. AI applications can be taught to detect patterns and trends, gather insights and subsequently recommend required actions. With high engagement and solid returns on investments in the Middle East, AI adoption is only projected to grow.

A challenge in implementing AI, however, is that the data must be precise and structured for the technology to perform effectively and provide accurate, usable outputs. In some instances, in fact, the considerable task of reengineering processes may be needed for the full benefits of AI to be realized. Ultimately, such an investment could result in a significantly improved, more efficient system, however.

Blockchain is also continuing to be explored in the Middle East. Dubai Economy and Emirates NBD introduced the UAE KYC blockchain platform which facilitates secure digital customer onboarding, instant bank account functionality and the sharing of verified KYC data. The Central Bank of Bahrain has also invested in blockchain, partnering with Fasset, to test its blockchain-based sustainable infrastructure asset exchange solution .

The potential to apply blockchain to enhance payments and trade is undeniable. Yet, unlike SWIFT gpi for example, where the foundations for the solution are already well established, blockchain is a brand new solution requiring considerable investment.

Furthermore, challenges and uncertainties remain, such as establishing full regulatory support and harmonized standards, timescales for achieving a network effect, the effort required to integrate the technology with other financial systems, and the potential for cost savings.

Strategic partnerships

With new capabilities providing opportunities to enhance the client experience, how can banks leverage the evolving landscape?

Ten years ago, experts suspected that the rise of fintechs was going to make it extremely challenging for banks to compete with their agile product development cycles. However, many banks have found a way to take advantage of the new disruptive technologies for themselves – through strategic partnerships.

Bank-fintech partnerships can be particularly valuable – especially with specialized companies that have expertise in a niche area. This can offer a bank the opportunity to accelerate its learning curve as well as saving time and resources in bringing products to market. With a growing millennial population, the Middle East region is expecting the fintech sector to grow and result in all-round improvements to the financial sector.

Correspondent banking is also a key way of supporting local banks’ digitization strategies and enabling innovative capabilities to be delivered to clients without significant investment. Non-compete correspondent banking alliances can play a mutually beneficial role in the Middle East, where local banks can benefit from the technological capabilities and extended reach of global specialists, while global banks gain access to the inimitable country-specific insights of local banks.

Looking ahead

Digitization is critical to the future of finance and treasury in the Middle East. As the industry continues to develop, banks will inevitably meet challenges along the way. Banks need to overcome these obstacles and keep up with the pace of change as the advantages for clients – such as increases in speed, efficiency, transparency and convenience– are many.

In addition to providing the technology tools, banks also have an important role to play in educating clients, whose own processes are built around legacy systems, and providing guidance to ease individual clients’ transformation from paper to electronic solutions.

While there is no single approach for banks, overcoming the challenges of the digital age is essential. Banks must prioritize the enhancement of legacy systems, invest in innovative technologies that improve their client offerings and define a strategic roadmap for a long-term competitive position. The future lies in creating a competitive edge and embracing the digital age.

Bana Akkad Azhari is the head of relationship management MEA and CIS at BNY Mellon Treasury Services

About Bana Akkad Azhari

Bana Akkad Azhari is the head of relationship management MEA and CIS at BNY Mellon Treasury Services

As BNY Mellon treasury services’ head of relationship management for the Middle East and North Africa region, as well as a member of the treasury services’ EMEA management team, Bana Akkad Azhari is instrumental to the group's business development and growth ambitions in the MENA emerging markets. She is also regional executive for the Levant and North Africa, with overall responsibility for business in Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Iraq.

She manages the overall coverage and delivery of BNY Mellon’s products and services to existing and potential clients as well as market development and strategic growth opportunities. Bana has also led the effort to establish a chapter in the Middle East and Africa region for the company-wide Women Initiative Network. Prior to joining BNY Mellon in 2006, Bana worked for over nine years with Citigroup in Beirut where she held the position of resident vice president and was a member of the credit committee.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi. Image: Shutterstock

"We are proud of the success that our Moxtra team has achieved in supporting banking and financial institutions over the last decade- especially ahead of the unique challenges presented in 2020 by the global pandemic," said Leena Iyar, chief brand officer for Moxtra. "Yet there is still tremendous opportunity across the banking and financial services space for companies to meet the demands of an evolving customer base and stay ahead of the rapid acceleration of digital transformation. By providing a private digital branch that allows customers to engage whenever they want and wherever they want, banks can create a truly customer-centric experience."

Moxtra was selected as the winner in the "Best Digital Banking Solution Provider" category out of a group of 15 finalists including Appway, FICO, INFOPRO, Infosys Finacle, Loxon Solutions, Moxtra, NCR, Ondot Systems, Prometeia, Qulix Systems, Temenos, and Vee24, Inc., with FintechOS Technology UK Ltd, FIS and Galileo Financial Technologies earning Highly Commended recognition. This year's ceremony was hosted by Tom Ward and took place on December 10. A full listing of the 2020 Banking Tech Award winners and Highly Commended finalists can be found at:  https://informaconnect.com/banking-tech-awards/winners-highly-commended/.

Moxtra's portal has been built over several years in partnership with some of the world's leading financial institutions. Moxtra has powered digital service experiences for global financial organizations such as Standard Chartered, Citibank, MUFG, Van Lanschot and Raiffeisen Bank International. The solution employs a multi-layered security framework that combines a robust back-end infrastructure, end-to-end data security, network protections, access controls, and full suite of security policies.

The Moxtra approach to security has translated into compliance with the leading privacy and security certifying bodies such as GDPR, SOC II, and the Cloud Security Alliance. Through Moxtra's OneStop Digital Branch solution, banks can provide customers with a secure, convenient experience across all digital touch-points - while managing their distributed organization. As digital transformation continues to accelerate, in part due to the pandemic, Moxtra will continue to support and scale with banks to power one-stop service experiences.

To learn more about how Moxtra is helping support businesses with private digital customer channels, visit https://moxtra.com/ and see industry examples at https://moxtra.com/Examples.

About Moxtra

Moxtra powers OneStop digital branches for customer engagement. In today's world, businesses need a private digital channel to deliver premier service to customers, anytime, anywhere. Moxtra's Customer Collaboration Platform features a suite of secure collaborative capabilities such as text, voice and video messaging, document collaboration, video meetings, digital signature, storage, and more. Digital branches, powered by Moxtra, help businesses retain and grow customers, manage their distributed organization, and lower costs for doing business.

With deep roots in business collaboration and engagement, Moxtra was co-founded in 2012 by Subrah Iyar, WebEx founder and former CEO, and Stanley Huang, former WebEx Senior Director of Engineering. Moxtra is headquartered in Cupertino, California, with offices in London, New York, Amsterdam, Bengaluru, Shanghai and Singapore. To learn more about enabling a private digital channel for your business, visit moxtra.com and follow the company on LinkedIn and on Twitter.

SOURCE Moxtra

Since the 2008 recession, lending regulations have increased dramatically, with almost 1,000 compliance changes implemented during the last eight years. Greater scrutiny of regulatory compliance has made it difficult to keep loan production costs in check. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the combination of increasing regulations and manual efforts to ensure compliance, have resulted in U.S. mortgage origination costs that are three times higher than they were a decade ago.

But your customers have little patience for the laundry list of regulations or the increasing operational burdens that have lengthened loan turnaround times—they expect their loan applications to be processed and approved quickly and accurately. Delays lead to dissatisfaction and disengagement. When you consider that, on average, it now takes 45 days for a loan to be approved, you can see there is room for improvement.

Welcome to the New World in Mortgage Lending

But imagine if there was a brand new world in your mortgage operations:  a tool that could easily enhance your ability to provide efficient and error-free mortgage lending services; a way to automate those repetitive, time-consuming manual tasks that zap productivity in your operations.

What if your knowledge workers—freed from entering loan data manually into multiple systems and vendor sites, retyping communications for borrowers and loan officers, and separating and saving documents into repositories—could instead devote their time to better customer service and other high-value activities?

It’s a reality with robotic process automation…..

How to Put Intelligent Software Robots to Work

Although the term “robotic process automation” or RPA might evoke an image of a shiny metal robot stealing your chair and taking over your keyboard, it is actually a software-based solution. With RPA, an intelligent software robot is configured to perform tasks previously performed manually by a person. RPA software is best-suited to take over “swivel chair” processes, where employees read data from one screen and key it into another. RPA interacts with other software and computer systems just like a human employee would—except a robot can do the work faster and cheaper, with fewer errors. And they can work 24/7 without a coffee break.

Software robots can be deployed to quickly and efficiently handle various mortgage lending tasks, such as monitoring emails, pulling in data from various internal systems and reconciling data between enterprise content management and loan origination systems. The elimination of manual errors and rework helps reduce operational costs and a more streamlined quality control and verification process improves compliance.  Customers receive their loan offers faster and are much happier with their lending experience.

RPA also plays quite well with others. It does not disturb any of your underlying systems and scales easily. RPA technology integrates with your core banking applications, so there’s no need to rip and replace your existing infrastructure. Robots interact with external online services by simply interacting with these web site portals just like your bank employees are doing today.  And no coding is required: you can put robots to work in a matter of weeks, not months, to realize significant productivity and efficiency gains.

Realizing Your RPA Opportunity

Leveraging software robots can help you meet loan quality, compliance and cost challenges head on—and realize a faster time to revenue for your lending business.

Case in point: Union Bank leveraged RPA to significantly improve its loan processes, resulting in a reduction in turnaround time for digitizing loan documents from 15 to 5 days; automation of post-closing processes to streamline loan file auditing; and the migration of 800,000 documents to ECM systems in a matter of days, not months.

Ready to dig deeper into the many ways RPA can revolutionize your mortgage lending processes? For more insights on how RPA can help you deliver a swift and seamless experience that builds customer loyalty, download our e-Paper: Forecasting Your Future: How Financial Institutions Are Improving Operations: 3 Ways to Transform Your Business Using Robotic Process Automation.

Why Digital Transformation Now

Digital transformation is fundamentally reshaping the way banks do business because it helps improve customer engagement and retention, increase operational efficiency and reduce costs. Plus, a well-planned, enterprise-wide digital transformation plan and platform make your bank easier to do business with.

The main market drivers pushing banks to digitize their processes are commonly known as the Four Cs: Customers, Competition, Compliance, and Costs.

Customers — Customers value digital experiences, especially on their mobile phones. They dictate their terms of engagement with businesses and decide what they want and where and how they want to receive it. New digital technologies can help your bank deliver a differentiated experience to attract, win and retain customers.

Compliance — Since many banking systems were not built to support ever-increasing regulations, banks have been forced to leverage people, not technology, to remain compliant.

Costs — Bank operating models based on paper and manual processing introduce errors, redundancy, and cost that will hamper banks’ ability to compete in the future.

Facing the challenges ahead

With industry pundits predicting doom and gloom, and many financial organizations bogged down with disconnected and aging legacy systems spanning various product lines and customer banking channels, how can banks compete effectively?

Although the wholesale line of business system replacements may be necessary in some cases, the reality is that project schedules and constrained budgets do not allow banks to digitize processes from the front office to the back office—and from consumer lending to wealth management to business banking—in the required time frame.

Making the case for a digital platform

The only answer is for decision-makers across all lines of business and IT to recognize that they need the same technologies and capabilities in a “digital platform” to maximize their existing infrastructure. This digital platform must have the flexibility to be applied to the unique use cases of each line of business and be able to integrate easily with the bank’s existing infrastructure and external sources, as required.

Purchasing and/or supporting the same technologies or point solutions for different lines of business is not only costly but also will not provide the efficiencies of a single digital platform for all areas of the bank.

Advantages of a digital platform

A best-in-class digital platform helps all lines of business in your bank address the Four Cs:

• Keeping your customers engaged when and how they want via an integrated, digital, omnichannel customer experience
• Providing business insights into processes and data to gain a competitive advantage, simplify customer support and enable customer self-service
• Integrating business rules into processes to ensure compliance and provide an audit trail
• Reducing operational costs by automating and supporting simpler end-to-end processing and connecting bank customer channels with bank systems of record, as well as external data sources

Create a digital future for your bank by transforming customer engagement, reducing costs and maximizing your existing infrastructure. Download the informative paper Banking on a Digital Future – a Guide to Digital Transformation today.

Consider that, by 2020, the customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.[1] Whether they are opening a checking or savings account, applying for a first mortgage or seeking investment advice after the transfer of wealth from a parent or grandparent, this new generation of financial services customer has very clear expectations about their banking experience—which does not include navigating a lengthy manual application process or waiting days or weeks for an approval.

And, importantly, these consumers aren’t comparing your bank’s speed, agility or omnichannel offering to the one at a competing bank a few streets over; they’re comparing it to their digital experience with the hassle-free “instant gratification” online retailers like Amazon or eBay. In fact, a Bain report on retail banking revealed that customers conduct more than 50% of their banking interactions through digital channels in 18 of 22 countries surveyed.[2]

The situation is further complicated by the many mergers and acquisitions in the financial industry in recent decades; many financial service organizations continue to struggle with connecting disparate legacy systems and/or integrating manual processes in order to access the data they need to effectively serve customers. Customer service representatives (CSRs) often need to swivel between a dizzying array of applications, as well as access information from both internal and external data sources, to confidently address customer complaints and questions. Gathering and analyzing this data, while also striving to provide quick and timely customer service, can be difficult tasks for your employees.

Fortunately, adopting a flexible, integrated digital model can be the key to keeping your customers satisfied—enter robotic process automation (RPA).

Harnessing the Power of RPA for Better Customer Service

 RPA uses “software robots” to automate the repetitive, mundane tasks of collecting and inputting data between portals, website, internal applications and bank systems. These robots aren’t metallic humanoids sitting at your desk. They are powerful software comprised of dynamic process flows. The end result: increased productivity and efficiencies, elimination of costly errors and freed up employees who can focus on more valuable work, including delivering better customer service and building loyalty.

No more will your customer service representatives spend the majority of their time manually gathering and inputting information between systems or trying to find customer data siloed in CRM, ERP and core banking systems. With RPA, these tasks can be streamlined and the time required cut in half, allowing your customer service representatives to do what they do best —serve and help your customers.

Worried about ripping up and replacing your current systems? RPA is not a core or backbone technology. It is complementary to your existing infrastructure, non-disruptive and scales easily. Software robots can be quickly and easily deployed to automatically run complex integrations across your email, call center applications and core bank systems—no coding required.

Unlocking the Potential of RPA

 Leveraging software robots to improve the way you serve customers is an investment in the longevity and loyalty of your relationships—and the future of your bank.

In a recent recent J.D. Power study, Paul McAdam, Senior Director of Banking Services, stated: “Establishing customer service tools for competitive differentiation is key to a successful path forward. We clearly see that the customer satisfaction leaders in retail banking excel by hitting the sweet spot of providing a great digital experience backed by personal service.”competitive differentiation is key to a successful path forward. We clearly see that the customer satisfaction leaders in retail banking excel by hitting the sweet spot of providing a great digital experience backed by personal service.”[3]

Ready to dig deeper into the customer benefits of RPA? For more insights on how RPA can help you deliver a swift and seamless experience that builds customer loyalty, download your free e-Paper: Forecasting Your Future: How Financial Institutions Are Improving Operations: 3 Ways to Transform Your Business Using Robotic Process Automation.

“Survival mode” wasn’t the mandate for General Electric in 2009. Founded in 1892, GE is a stalwart multinational conglomerate whose beginnings were innovative—light bulb, anyone?—but had since become bloated and slow to change.

GE could have taken the same death march as Blockbuster or Circuit City: a publicly-traded company one day and gone the next. But in 2009, GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt had his own light-bulb moment: he realized that the data GE’s jet engines collected was possibly more valuable than the engines themselves. The only problem? GE didn’t have the technology to extrapolate, analyze and leverage that data.

That was the moment GE decided that digital transformation was the path forward. The industrial giant began considering Amazon and Google its competitors instead of peers in the industry.

The GE digital transformation story is inspiring and encouraging to enterprise organizations, where change is slow and transformation complex. But GE didn’t just flip a switch and “go digital.” It took making the commitment and then making step-by-step changes over time to achieve true enterprise agility…and because the digital revolution is ongoing, so is GE’s continued digital transformation.

Inspired to follow GE’s path? Kofax has a proven framework for a step-by-step progression organizations can take to go from digital zero to total enterprise agility. We call this framework the Business Value Stairway, and it’s based on years of working with thousands of organizations around the globe and providing technology solutions that enable their digital transformations.

Every business is at a different stage of the journey, and each stage of transformation creates increased value both internally and to the customer experience for all of your stakeholders.

Let’s take a look at Step One in the digital transformation journey, and in the next several weeks we’ll explore subsequent steps.

Step One: Improve Information Visibility

If your organization is still working with a lot of paper, you’ve likely got several pain points, from a lack of information access and visibility to a painful customer experience and a potential compliance nightmare.

Step One of the Business Value Stairway is digitizing information with a smart capture solution that captures paper and electronic documents and forms, transforms them into accurate and actionable digitized information, and delivers this information into your core business applications, processes and workflows.smart capture solution that captures paper and electronic documents and forms, transforms them into accurate and actionable digitized information, and delivers this information into your core business applications, processes, and workflows.

We call the improvement of information visibility “step one” for a good reason: once organizations take that first step toward digital transformation, they quickly see the possibilities in other areas, like streamlining workflows and creating a better customer experience.

Get inspired: Two industry pioneers accomplish the first step

ING-DiBa, Germany’s third largest retail bank, had a vision of becoming Germany’s leading digital bank by delivering on a key promise: “ING-DiBa’s offerings are simple, fast and convenient for our customers.” The institution was already leveraging Kofax solutions like Kofax Capture and Kofax Transformation Modules for scanning around 150,000 documents per day (Step One of the Business Value Stairway). There was just one problem: their customers were mobile and they were not.

The bank realized they could extend inputs beyond internal scanners and right to customers’ devices, empowering customers to turn their smartphones into scanners. Customers can take pictures of bills, remittance slips and other documents, which are read and processed by a central application, sent back to the customer for approval, and then sent directly to ING-DiBa’s banking software.

After just three months, more than 3,000 documents were arriving at the bank each day through customer-led mobile capture. ING-DiBa’s initiative created digital visibility not just within the organization, but within its customer base as well.

The North Dakota University System (NDUS) leveraged paper digitization to improve the student experience across 11 campuses. While they already had Kofax Perceptive Content installed in individual instances on campuses to enable digital content management, information wasn’t being managed consistently, and timely content access and sharing across campuses was an issue. With many students having a presence across multiple campuses, information like admissions records, financial data, and transcripts needed to be shared quickly and efficiently.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative in higher education, the NDUS unified its operations on the Perceptive Content platform to enable a faster, simpler exchange of student records.higher education, the NDUS unified its operations on the Perceptive Content platform to enable a faster, simpler exchange of student records.

What’s more, the unified platform has given the NDUS a valuable opportunity to look more closely at their processes and unlock greater efficiencies. In other words, the NDUS is poised for Step Two of the Business Value Stairway: Achieve Operational Excellence. We’ll explore just what this means and highlight companies who have achieved Step Two in next week’s post—stay tuned.

Learn how your organization can take the first step toward digital transformation and unlock information through digitization. Join us at Inspire, our annual customer and partner conference this April 23-26 in Nashville. You’ll be inspired by industry-leading speakers, customer-led sessions and powerful opportunities to connect. Don’t wait—register today.

In a recent study, Javelin found that almost half of applicants opened a checking account either online or on a mobile device. This trend will grow as 70% of applicants indicated they would prefer to open their next account in a digital channel.

Aimed at finding out what are the adoption rates for digital account opening and to discuss what are the current approaches that financial institutions are taking to combat new-account fraud, Mitek has joined forces with ‘American Banker’ and Javelin Strategy and Research. In our upcoming online session, Looking Beyond KBA: Halting fraud in the digital channel, experts from Javelin and Mitek will address successful ways of overcoming faulty methods of identity verification such as KBA to deliver a hassle-free, secure, and fast account opening experience within the digital channel.

Putting digital identity verification to work to win millennials

The need to solve the security-convenience conundrum is more acute than ever in a market in which banks, credit unions and financial services providers fiercely compete to win over the next generation of customers: Millennials.

Within the financial services industry, the digital experience has become the main stumbling block in engaging Millennial customers. How Millennials Want to Work and Live, a recent research by Gallup, shows that, compared with other generations, Millennials are the most likely to use online and mobile banking channels, with 73% of them stating their preference is a digital relationship with their bank (through mobile, online or ATM channels.)

For financial institutions the identity verification piece of account opening process typically ends the digital customer experience, prompting high rates of abandonment for digital opening (anywhere between 35% and 80% according to MobileStrategyPartners.)

For example, knowledge-based authentication (KBA) does not work for customers with thin credit files, such as immigrants or Millennials, who are then forced to visit the branch to authenticate their identity, they normally decidy to not to go and simply abandon the account opening process. Furthermore, the rapidly increasing number of data breaches exposing consumers’ personal data does nothing but adding mistrust in this type of identity authentication.

Javelin’s Al Pascual addresses challenges and solutions in American Banker Webinar

This digital-first imperative is no news for banks in the U.S. - four out of five already offer digital account opening, or plan offer it within a year. Yet the pressure is for them not only to get there fast, but faster than the competition.

Join our complimentary web seminar, hosted by American Banker’s contributing Editor Mike Sisk, and get expert advice from Al Pascual, Research Director, Head of Fraud & SecurityJavelin Strategy & Research, and Steve Craig, Mitek’s Director, Products & Experience – Identity.