Remote sign up makes opening an account a breeze

How our automated KYC process stops prospects from procrastinating

“Do you want to open a bank account with us?” Here is the way thousand of commercial officers start their sales pitch, trying to convince potential customers to start banking and transacting. And most of them get the same answers : “Oh, I prefer keeping money at home” and quite often “Maybe someday…” In the meantime, research shows that almost everyone believes that having a bank account and keeping money aside is a sign of prosperity.

So why do our potentials customers keep procrastinating on opening a bank account? And how to challenge our customers to take the first steps to realizing their “someday”.

Let’s zoom first on the process side. Rules for opening banking account often entail a number of requirements that poor people find hard to meet (lot of supporting documents to be provided, multiple back and forth with legalization authorities and the branch, source of income to be justified, …) This leads to thousands of potential customers that remain unbanked mainly because of tedious form-filling procedures imposed in the name of KYC (Know-Your-Customer) requirements. On top of that, low income customers can be scared of stepping in the bank branch that is often very crowded.

On the provider side, KYC process is costly to run (handling and collecting paper-based forms, conducting personal interviews, archiving customer files) and underlying customer acquisition costs remain a serious barrier to build a strong and growing customer base.

Automated KYC and simplified account offer

To improve financial inclusion, we believe in a digital onboarding experience with a highly automated KYC that aims to create a bank account remotely in less than 5 minutes. This offer is designed for all potential customers (especially for low income and excluded segments) and can be done through a sweet combination of:

• An Android mobile application running on Tablet, leveraging Technology (face recognition, mobile, biometric, GPS, SMS, OCR technology) and User Experience (extremely intuitive user interfaces, app operating in low bandwidth, save-and-continue-later option)
• A customer centric sign-up experience, that makes our customers feel empowered while knowing we’re there for them.
• A basic account offer, as this solution creates remotely and in less than 5 minutes an active bank account for the customer.

This solution will help our subsidiaries to massively accelerate their client acquisition objectives while delivering a positive and promising first banking experience for the customer.

Creating a banking account in less than 5 minutes made possible

Opening account in less than 5 minutes is a 6-step process that is made possible by a smart use of technology:

Step 1: Customer is invited to take a selfie with the tablet. Serious moment, as many women and men take a few seconds to look pretty!

Step 2: We take a photo of the ID card. Through OCR (Optical Character recognition) technology, ID card informations are extracted and populate automatically customer form fields. This feature avoids manual entries and potential errors.

Step 3: We confirm the mobile phone number of our customer by sending and OTP (One Time Password) code via SMS that we check right after reception on customer mobile.

Step 4: We capture customer fingerprints with a biometry device. These fingerprints are extremely important for him to get identified and perform transactions with our agent network.

Step 5: Customer can go through and approve account contract policies by signing electronically with his fingerprint.

Step 6: Account is opened in real time and customer receives a congratulations SMS with his account number. To comply with regulations, accounts created are capped in balance, and have restrictions in term of transaction amounts depending on the channel to access funds.

And that’s it!

This easy sign-up and immediate account opening process is a first key stone in our customer journey. With this free of charge account, our customer can go to the nearest agent, make some plan for the future and start banking with us! But this is only a very first step forward. In 2016, additional products and services will be linked to this account: our customer will be able to transfer money to relatives, pay bills, receive an instant loan depending on his profile, or save in an easy way.

Branchless banking is moving on!

Stay tuned