Discover how DHL Group increased connectivity across the enterprise and automated multiple processes end-to-end
Paper-based solutions are outdated, slow, and inefficient. They will inevitably cause delays in the approval process, which can vary from something as simple as approving a vacation request, to signing off on multi-million-dollar projects. For those working in banking, it is a vital process to help guarantee compliance and show consideration and reasoning for decisions made. But requests for approvals can often get lost in a sea of admin, holding up important operations.
Here are three examples of how banks from around the world have transformed their approvals process to maximize speed while minimizing risk.
Nothing is quite as frustrating as a bottleneck in a process that stops you from completing a task. Unfortunately, when it comes to approvals from external parties, such as credit bureaus for approving loans and lines of credit, these bottlenecks are common. This can hinder efficiency and prevent organizations from meeting their SLAs.
Financial company ACSA was looking to speed up its credit card application process, which was taking over two weeks from the moment that customers filled out a paper form in-branch until they had their credit limit approved and new card sent to them to use.
Automating the credit card application process has reduced the time that it takes to approve credit limits to under 30 minutes from completing an application through to a physical credit card in the hands of the customer. ACSA has combined this with on-site embossing machines so customers can get their new credit cards, ready to use, on-the-spot.
Read ACSA’s full story of loan origination automation to discover how they delighted customers in a secure and compliant manner.
Rule and regulations rarely remain unchanged, so it's important to keep processes up-to-date to reflect any amends. InformationAge reports that JWG, a think tank focusing on regulations, estimates that over 300 million pages of regulatory documents will be published by 2020. Whoever is responsible for signing approvals need to know that these regulations are adhered to, or else they could be the one facing penalties.
AgFirst Credit Bank needed to develop an agile approach to working to ensure their loan approval process kept up with the stringent, ever-changing regulations that surround financial services.
Utilizing agile methodology and Bizagi’s automation platform, AgFirst now has a responsive, mobile platform capable of adapting to its customers’ changing needs, all without increasing headcount and dramatically improving compliance consistency. Thanks to the smooth new process, loan cases were closed in an average of 12.5 days, 60% faster than expected, with agile workflows immediately reflecting changes to policies and regulatory updates.
Find out more about how AgFirst are using the agility of Bizagi as part of a broader compliance project.
COVID-19 impacted businesses across the world to varying degrees. Banks and lenders were particularly hard hit as a knock-on effect of many people being put out of work requesting credit deferrals.
Leading Austrian bank, VKB Bank, had already begun its digitalization project in 2020 and the credit installment process was on its radar. It was a manual process, with several arduous steps. This wasn’t ideal, but the bank only received an average of 150 credit deferral requests per year, so it was manageable.
However, the COVID pandemic caused a short-term boom in the number of requests, which sometimes totaled in peak more than 100 per day, an increase of over 100x. This significantly tied up their resources in the back office and prevented them from serving customers quickly.
The process was simplified using Bizagi so the approval process is now simple and fast. Once the team receive a credit deferral request, they can review the customer data and evaluate the duration of the referral using an automated calculation. The user can then approve or reject the request and a document of approval is created and automatically stored in the system.
The entire process now takes just four to six minutes, rather than 40 – 60 minutes. Overall process efficiency has increased by 90% and is conducted over the single Bizagi platform, rather than seven different IT systems.
Find out more about how VKB Bank used Bizagi to efficiently respond to the global pandemic.
The approval process is just one of many vital steps that organizations in financial services need to undertake in part of their everyday operations. To find out more about other processes that can be transformed by process automation, and for more real-life examples of those who have benefited, download our free ebook, The Essential Guide to Modernizing Banking Operations.
