Money matters are serious. Thus, everything that involves money needs to be highly secured at the same time huge process is involved in validating who owns that money. That’s the reason why banks and financial institutions face the heat of user expectations and must focus on customer onboarding in banks.

It is when customers compare banking apps' experience or onboarding experience to that of regular e-commerce apps like Amazon and Swiggy. According to McKinsey, the widespread use of digital finance will accelerate the annual GDP of all emerging economies by $3.7 trillion by 2025, a 6% increase versus a business-as-usual scenario.

No matter how far technological advancement is supporting the ease of banking, there are still limitations in process enhancements at various stages of user onboarding. So the primary focus of banking enterprises has shifted to these process automation and educational user onboarding experiences in recent times.

The customer onboarding process has evolved over the years, and this is what the future of customer onboarding might look like:

Complete transition to digital :

The last few years have seen a massive shift from physical to digital systems, especially in banking. Effective cost-cutting coupled with digital transformation made the organizations realize being digital is the only sustainable way of leading business in the future. Thus onboarding, which involves a multitude of verifications and document sharing, is also on its way to complete digitization.

E-KYC everywhere:

Today, every citizen of a developed nation owns an identification card. This has made getting information about customers easy. Digitizing this particular user verification has created scalable opportunities for financial institutions to onboard users at a quicker pace. The customer onboarding costs in banks have been reduced by 90%, as per the McKinsey report, due to Electronic KYC or e-KYC.

Guided walkthroughs:

User onboarding, like for any other application, is the pivotal moment. It is to create that first strong impression about a particular brand or company. Thus educating users is a two-way win.

On the one hand, customers get to know about the process and how to use the digital platform as per their needs. On the other hand, banks can onboard users at a faster pace. Guided walkthroughs also eliminate the value gap by setting up the right expectations about the product.

Real-time security:

Transparency and security are opposite poles, but users are expecting both at the same time. Hence real-time security has become essential to validate the true owner of a particular account. Two-factor authorization and facial recognition are definitely making it easy. However, banks are practicing robust practices to identify fraud and phishing right from the very onboarding itself. Few patterns of data validate fraud, saving a lot of money for businesses alongside building trust.

Process reduction:

For a very long time, the user onboarding process of banking has had a high friction cycle. This includes going to the physical banks, submitting the necessary documents, following up, and not forgetting the tiresome activity of standing in long queues. No wonder tier-II and tier-III city audiences have less liking for owning a savings account because of all such restrictions.

So, solving this root cause by reducing the process to digital documents and e-signatures will help. Also, the lengthy process of multiple steps that involves taking tedious follow-ups is getting cut down to a few steps on mobile. Thus cutting out such a lengthy process could benefit both parties for good.

Wrapping up:

Any change that benefits millions of people is always a good one. However, every change comes at a cost. The banking industry is not like e-commerce, hence expecting the exact kind of user experience can still lead to disappointment, and thus, customer onboarding is paramount in banks.

Still, banking applications are aiming to meet user needs in terms of better user experience by including rewards, gamification, and many other methodologies. The future holds a huge potential to reach every nook and corner of the world without compromising on data security.

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Future of customer onboarding in banks

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