Challenge:

I have been working in the Corporate Financing Sector as a Relationship Manager for more  than 15 years and one of the main difficulties that arose during the last period is the  increasing need for “Know Your Customer” (KYC) reporting. In particular, all corporate clients  are obliged on an annually basis to fill out, sign and submit several different and complexed  KYC documents and provide information about income and beneficial owners. This need is  currently met through a highly bureaucratic procedure that is time-consuming for both parties  and causes a lot of frustration mainly for our clients.

In order to improve the workflow of this procedure, a team was set up including some  Relationship Managers and members of the Business Development, Compliance and IT  Departments. Our goal was to determine the malfunctions of the current procedure and end  up to a faster and simpler workflow in order to make it easier for our corporate clients to  submit the requested information.

Selection:

All team members agreed that any solutions concluded after the procedure assessment  should be tested by a small client segment before they are widely implemented on all  corporate portfolio. Therefore, the learning launch tool was selected that will be provide us  the necessary feedback before the new workflow is applied.

Application:

The team’s assessment pointed out that possibly the biggest problem was the large number  of KYC documents that have to be filled out, signed and submitted throughout the year and  in various points of time. Therefore, it was suggested that all KYC information should be  provided in one comprehensive document (containing all necessary data) submitted once a  year. A new draft KYC report was made from scratch and it was sent out to approximately  5% of our clientele to be filled out and tested as part of a new possible workflow. In addition,  the IT Department set up e-versions of all existing KYC reports that would be available online  through the corporate e-banking sites of the same client segment. The team’s goal was to  gain feedback for both solutions provided (one full KYC report or online completion of the  various existing documents) before deciding which one to adopt.

Insight:

The results of the learning launch clearly illustrated that the online completion of all reports  was preferred by the clientele. In specific, the vast majority of them selected the online  reports instead of the new sole but comprehensive documentation that was created as it was  found a lot easier to complete the procedure online. The wide acceptance of the online  solution demonstrated that the use of e-banking should be preferred in more aspects of the  daily business and therefore must be further developed.

Approach:

All procedure amendments within the Bank require the use of many internal resources but  also involve strict limitations in cost and time. The learning launch tool provides the necessary  feedback required before they are implemented in order to avoid any malfunctions or client  discontent. It is found to be the most informative and accurate tool before applying changes  and should be used more widely.

