Significance of digital customer onboarding in the banking space

While it was inevitable that going digital was always the future of the banking industry, much like other sectors, the speed of digital adoption has been breakneck in the last couple of years, especially ever since the pandemic outbreak. However, one cannot ignore the efforts put in by visionaries and industry first movers who started building the eco and support system much earlier. One of the most prominent examples of the same is the advent of India Stack development, the ambitious project of creating a unified software platform to bring people into the digital age, which started almost a decade ago.

The world we live in today is, undoubtedly, more competitive and fast-paced than ever, thanks to all the technological advancements. And owing to such rapid progress, traditional institutions, such as the banking sector, were compelled to develop better and more optimal solutions for their customers to enhance their experience. Thus, no wonder why it has now become crucial for banking institutions to place more emphasis on the digital customer onboarding experience.

How does digital customer onboarding help the banking industry?

The digital customer onboarding process has changed the way how organizations connect with their customers. This is the first step in a fully digital journey. Digital customer onboarding revolutionized the banking sector by making every stage of the onboarding process easier. One can design an optimized and user-friendly experience for new customers in place of numerous paper forms and in-person checks. These notable advancements have demonstrated how crucial it is, now more than ever, for banking institutions to provide digital customer onboarding.

Here’s the significance of digital customer onboarding in the banking space: 

• Enhanced customer experience: The user experience is crucial to ensure that a bank's reputation in the market is strong and growing. Happy and satisfied customers always come back for more and even tell others about the company. And the digital onboarding process helps in giving the customer a first impression of what they can expect from a bank, including how simple and easy their processes are. The transition to a digital world is happening more quickly than ever, but it must be simple to use and offer quick, flexible access to services so that customers can enjoy a seamless experience.

• Increased operational efficiency: With the digital onboarding of customers, banks can streamline their operations and spend less time as well as money on paperwork.  If financial institutions have a suitable platform to assist customers with onboarding while adhering to regulatory standards, the right tools can help reduce workdays to minutes. Digital onboarding enables banks to free up their team for other pertinent and more difficult responsibilities while minimizing reliance on branches and operating costs. Additionally, by reaching customers in different locations and enhancing employee productivity, digital onboarding can assist banks in growing their business.

• Reduced frauds: For many years, banks have been dealing with revenue loss because of fraud. As technology has developed, banks' traditional operations are unable to prevent security breaches. The digital onboarding process gives banks a number of methods to easily verify the customer's identification, which helps banks boost system security and lower fraud. With a digital onboarding process, it is feasible to connect with consumers, run liveness checks, conduct guided interviews, and more using reliable technology solutions. The majority of fraud attempts can be easily decreased by something as easy as using a selfie with liveness detection to confirm consumer identification.

The final word

Fast-changing technology produces new tools every day that make life easier. It is essential for a financial institution in this digital era to be aware of those rapid changes and be prepared to adapt to give every consumer the greatest possible experience. This will help the company stand out from competitors. Digital onboarding is part of this change, thus, it must be on every institution's radar. Arguably, it is not as complex as it appears and hence, will stick as the norm in the future. 

The article has been written by Nageen Kommu, Founder & CEO, Digitap