BPM Enabling the Key Banking Processes

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, and is the third largest bank in the UAE. Starting its operations in 1985, ADCB has established itself as the bank of choice for a large number of customers in the UAE in a short span of time.

The Challenge

The bank has been making steady investments in its IT infrastructure and business automation solutions. However, it needed a solution, which could take a holistic-yet-comprehensive view of their processes and enable end-to-end and complete automation of processes.

The bank identified Account Opening process as the most critical processes to be automated. The existing standalone application for Accounts Opening posed following challenges:

• Cumbersome process: The application worked in isolation and had no integration with the Core Banking System – FlexCube. This resulted in huge efforts in data entry, export and import. Also, there was no integration with EMPOST (courier company that delivers Welcome Kit) and Smart Debit Card System.
• Poor access to documents: The standalone application was not equipped to view scanned images . This made the process time intensive and error prone.

• Inaccurate Data: The existing application provided few validations, leading to insufficient, incomplete and inaccurate data being captured.
• Redundant Data: The application did not provide facility to check if certain information is already present. This resulted in accumulation of redundant data over a period of time.
• Time intensive Data Exchange: The data exchange was not seamless and required users to separately log into the core banking system.
• Inflexible workflow: The processes were hard-coded, which were difficult to change vis-à-vis the changes in the business process.
• Poor Monitoring and tracking: The existing system required laborious monitoring and tracking of processes, resulting in poor and delayed discovery of process bottlenecks.
• Difficulty in Compliance Management and Auditing: Due to poor/lack of automation, the bank was spending large amounts on ensuring compliance.

Due to these challenges, the bank required an integrated solution, built over the BPM platform.

The BPM Solution

The Account Opening Process

Newgen provided the bank with a BPM-enabled workflow platform for implementing an automated Account Opening process. The process comprises following steps:

1. A bank account is opened through a Customer Relationship Officer (CRO), or else a Direct Selling Agent (DSA) could approach the customer on bank’s behalf.
2. CRO captures the customer’s details, verifies if the customer already exists and introduces the Account Opening application form image as a workitem into the solution’s workflow.
3. The application is directed to the Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) for authorization.
4. Next, details arrive at the Central Processing Department (CPD) for validations.
5. If cleared, the customer data is automatically pushed into the FlexCube.
6. CPD helps the courier company track the Welcome kits to be delivered to the customers.
7. Finally, the Welcome kit is delivered, and all the documents are archived.

Pushing Customer Data into FlexCube through OmniFlow

Solution Features

The BPM solution from Newgen has been integrated with the bank’s Core Banking System, SMS System and Card Management System. Some of the other features provided by the solution are:

• Searching for existing customer record
• Signature cropping and linking to account at customer’s local branch
• Comprehensive validation checks
• Archiving of Account Opening documentation
• Generation of complete audit trail to view history of events taken place for any record.

In words of Harshana Lajmi – System Manager, IT System Dev, ADCB , “We found the BPM platform very useful to align our business processes. It gives us the flexibility to amend the process and improve them further.”

Solution Highlights

The solution has been currently implemented for 43 branches of the bank and supports 706 users.

For Account Opening, the system processes approximately 245 applications every day, which can be easily scaled up to meet any future requirement of the bank. Every month, more than 61,000 documents are scanned and imported into the workflow for processing.

The solution is implemented on Windows 2003 Server with Oracle 9i database as the back-end.

Solution Deployment at ADCB

Replicating Success of the Account Opening Process

Buoyed by the success of the BPM-enabled Account Opening process, the bank decided to implement and automate a number of other key processes such as Customer and Account Maintenance, Term Deposit, Know Your Customer (KYC) – Corporate and Retail, and Image-based Cheque Clearing (Cheque Truncation System) on the BPM platform.

Customer & Account Maintenance (CAM): In the CAM process, existing customer visits the bank branch for placing the maintenance request for either customer or account information. The request is processed by printing and verifying the documents, and collecting the required supporting documents from the customer. Seamless integration with FlexCube provides quick data retrieval.

Term Deposit – New and Maintenance : Due to the safety, liquidity and stability of returns, the bank was witnessing a steady increase in the number of customers buying term deposit.

KYC Retail and Corporate: These processes help bank know more closely and extensively about their customers for regulatory compliance requirements.

Image-based Cheque Clearing: The Cheque Truncation solution speeds-up the check-clearing cycle, with the complete transaction taking a fraction of the time of the earlier manual method.

The Benefits

The solution immediately impacted the speed, efficiency and accuracy of Account Opening process. The major benefits are as follows:

• Integration with Multiple Applications: Newgen solution is seamlessly integrated with various applications. Now, all the tasks are completed through a single login.
• Improved Turn Around Time: Earlier even after the account had been opened, it used to take 4-5 days to intimate the customer. With Newgen solution, the customer is intimated within 10-15 minutes of his account being operational.
• Easier Verification: Online availability of document images makes verification simplified and accurate. Data redundancy, too, is handled by highlighting the repeat information.
• Flexibility: The solution has brought in unparalleled flexibility in the process, be it modifying the forms or communicating and information exchange with other systems.
• Future-ready solution: The BPM platform provides the bank a scalable and robust platform to efficiently manage any future expansions and process complexities.
• Better and Easier Regulatory Compliance: The bank is able to easily capture extensive customer information as per KYC norms for statutory compliance and audits.

Witnessing the radical benefits, ADCB is further implementing several new processes, such as LG Issuance-Amendment, LG Advice, LG Claim, LG Closure, on the BPM platform.

Mr. Moataz Al Ghalayini – Head of Central Processing Department had this to say about Newgen solution , “We have realized comprehensive benefits from the document-imaging-enabled BPM solution. Apart from drastic improvement in processes efficiencies, we have better control over our processes and personnel. The scalable solution braces us up for meeting any future requirements. We have found Newgen team supportive and knowledgeable, and we would like to explore further opportunities with Newgen Software.”

Newgen Offering for Banks

Newgen enterprise BPM and ECM solutions allow Banking and Financial Services organizations to build and sustain competitive advantage by automating their business processes, managing content, and simplifying critical and everyday decision-making. The end-to-end BPM suite caters to a range of processes in the areas of Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Investment Banking, Asset Management, Mortgage, Check Truncation and so on. Some of the processes that the company has successfully automated are as follows:

• Loan Origination System
• Credit Card Issuance and Customer Servicing
• Account Opening and Account Servicing
• Customer Query Resolution and Channel Integration
• Remittance Processing

Major banks and financial services organizations across South East Asia, Middle East, Africa, China and the Indian subcontinent have acquired Newgen solutions to stay competitive and manage their growth. Some of our prestigious clients are HSBC Bank, Deutsche Bank, Hua Nan Bank, ABN Amro Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, State Bank Of India, ING Vysya Bank, CitiFinancial, RAK Bank, Bank of Tanzania, Max New York Life and Bajaj Allianz.

About Newgen

Newgen Software Technologies Ltd. is a market leader in Business Process Management (BPM) & Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions. We have a global footprint of about 700 installations in over 30 countries. More than 100 of these implementations are large, mission-critical solutions deployed at world’s leading Banking, Financial Service & Insurance (BFSI), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Fortune Global 500 companies. Our recent accolades are as follows:

• Gartner included Newgen in the Magic Quadrant report on BPMS (2007)
• Black Book of Outsourcing recognized Newgen as No.1 vendor in the Wealth Management Industry
• CMS Watch acknowledged Newgen OmniFlow TM as a “True BPM product” in the ECM Suites Report (2007)
• IDC named Newgen as a “Global leader in BPM and DMS solutions” (2007)
• Frost & Sullivan honored Newgen with “The Market Leadership Award for Document Management & Workflow Software & Services” (2006)
• Celent recognized Newgen as a “Significant Player” in Document Management report on Banking (2006)
• NASSCOM profiled Newgen as a “Distinguished Product company” (2005)

Newgen, started in 1992, is headquartered in New Delhi. The company has its software development centers in New Delhi and Chennai. The company’s regional Sales and Support offices are located in six metros in India, the Middle East, Europe, Africa & the USA. A strong network of over 50 partners market and support Newgen products across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. The company also owns a subsidiary (wholly owned), Newgen Software Inc., in USA located in McLean, Virginia.

Newgen Software is an ISO 9001:2000 certified, ISO 27001 certified and CMM Level 4 company. Newgen employs more than 1000 people and holds more than 3,500 man-years of experience, with over US $25- million investment in developing and deploying solutions.

Newgen enterprise software solutions allow customers to build and improve customer centric processes by managing content throughout their organization, automating and streamlining their business processes, and simplifying their critical and everyday decision-making. The company caters to customers in India and overseas in diverse areas like Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Telecom, BPOs/Shared Service Centres, Manufacturing, Government and Airlines.

Newgen product suite includes OmniFlow TM, OmniDocs TM, OmniReports TM, OmniScan TM, OmniExtract TM, OmniOMS TM, SmartStatements TM, CheckFlow TM (CTS) and OmniCompliance TM. All these products are based on J2EE technology and are highly scalable. All Newgen products are designed for enterprise implementation.

www.newgensoft.com