When you start working with a new customer, of course you want to know whether that person is reliable. These days, we make this very difficult, calling it onboarding or KYC compliance, but the principle is as old as time: you prefer not to do business with villains and scammers.
Financial institutions have to adhere to a lot of rules. They have to check the identity of their customers, check whether they are not registered in sanctions lists, they have to check who the ultimate owners of companies are (the UBOs ), and so on.
Automation has made a lot easier. A Chamber of Commerce extract from a new customer is available at the push of a button, and a few more mouse clicks and you know whether someone is registered on a sanctions list.
But automation doesn’t solve everything. Research shows that two-thirds of all consumers have aborted an application process at a financial institution. And that percentage is higher among young people than among older people. It’s not that they don’t understand it, they just don’t have patience for cumbersome onboarding processes.
How to make a difference
This is what the coming years will be about: how do you make the onboarding process for your customers as easy as possible, while continuing to comply with all laws and regulations?
Financial institutions can make a difference by focusing on the following areas:
• Make the customer journey the starting point. Ensure a holistic customer journey in a transparent digital environment. Institutions that develop their systems with the entire customer journey as a starting point score better on customer satisfaction and involvement.
• Ensure integrated data management. A central system for managing customer data is essential. This provides a centralized and accessible repository of customer data, streamlining the onboarding process.
• Invest in new technologies. It’s obvious, but technologies like artificial intelligence can revolutionize onboarding processes. Automated tasks and intelligent decision-making can simplify processes and improve efficiency.
• Don’t lose sight of the customer. Don’t forget who it’s all about. The customer. To start with, make sure that they know why it is important, by pointing out risks and the danger of financial crime. And reward customers for good behavior.
When you’ve done all that, you’ve safely onboarded a new client. But that’s just the start. The end of the onboarding process is the start of the relationship. It is essential that you stay informed about your clients during the entire span of the relationship. This is called monitoring, and is the subject of our next blog post.
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