Bank & Finance

The fact is that legal documentation is one of the main challenges in the process of loan or leasing origination.

The reason is very simple, not only are there many types of contracts, clauses, restrictions and constraints but also, each organization has its own legal texts and especially, its own rules of application.

The challenge of automating the legal documentation of a loan origination process is both a productivity and a financial institution’s profitability challenge as it greatly reduces the financing cycle and the number of loan errors. In addition, automation allows the organization to truly take a digital turn by eliminating paper from the process.

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In a financing process, the module that supports the creation of quotes plays a big role because most of the work is happening there. If we consider that we win one out of 10 quotes, it is clear that the calculation of these quotes must be fast and flexible.

In general, the financing process goes as follow:

Thus, we will explore in this 2nd post, the functions Automation of Calculations for Quotation, Approval of Credit and Pricing.

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It would be unthinkable today to offer a commercial financing or leasing service and to manually calculate, in real time, the data and amounts needed to generate this financing, especially if we consider all the different levels involved; the sales function, the credit department, the risk department, the administrative services and the accounting for the management of the loan or the leasing, etc.

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You think: come on you! Right? Ok, read on. We live in North America and still think that we have the lead on technology. This creates a safe feeling for our tech jobs. We have exported the manufacturing jobs in Asia because manufacturing became just too expensive and the manpower grew unwilling to work for low wages. We probably also hoped that by creating wealth in a very populated area of the world, we would create a big new customer base.

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If one technology or concept has driven attention at Fintech 2016, it’s certainly the Blockchain Technology, upon which the Bitcoin crypto-currency is based. This technology was the topic of the Wednesday’s lunch which was immediately followed by a discussion with a panel of high-level international experts.

Fintech Montreal 2016 was presented last Tuesday and Wednesday, on the 20th and 21st of September, at the Palais des Congrès and as expected the Who’s Who in the world of finance in Québec was attending. The program was well structured including of course, a « Startups » moment, just as every event worth attending does. God knows, Fintechs are worth the detour since they rock the Finance & Banks processes big time, invading a field which used to be exclusive to some, proposing simple, fluid and mobile enhanced solutions, in short, much more efficient; just think of the new “Mobile Money” paradigm and Mobile Banking!

In short, according to all these experts, the Blockchain Technology will revolutionize the field of Banks and Finance in the next few years and this revolution, although still pretty much invisible to the majority, has already started.

Why and how?  Let’s see!

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Mobile Banking Services, or Bank on-the-go if you prefer, is getting so strong in some countries and with some segments of population like the Millenniums that Banks must now act quickly to understand its trends and become key players to profit from it.

One of the key factor of Mobile Banking Services growth is the high penetration level of Smartphones in Western countries where 50% of owners have been using a mobile banking application. All major Banks in North America have deployed or developed Mobile Banking Services in recent years which a large part of their Clientele is using.

In countries where a large proportion of the people is unbanked, cellular phones are being used as a commercial vector of all sorts!

“Banking is essential, not Banks,” famously said Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, in 1994.

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Major disruptions in Banking and Financing on the horizon; thanks to new technologies from Big Data Analytics to Mobile Apps that are reshaping this sector at a fast pace, resulting in new ways for companies and customers & consumers to interact, to manage their money and to conduct transactions.

Global investment in Fintech ventures hit $5.7 billion in the first quarter of 2016, and about half the funding went to projects in Asia, primarily in China. “The reason funding is taking off now is that the four platforms – Mobility, Big Data (IoT) and Analytics, Blockchain Technology (Bitcoin) and Machine Learning (AI) – are in their infancy,” said Catherine Wood, CEO of ARK Investment Management (US) at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in 2016.

The fact is that Banking and Financial Services is one of the largest industries that is still not fully digitalized. In this field of activities, the technological revolution has just begun.

So let’s see what we’re up to and what major disruptions we may foresee.

Overview of upcoming disruptions in Banking and Financing

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In this post, we will present 5 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that are crucial to have on your Manager Dashboard if you’re to get a crystal clear vision of your Financial Services or Banking Products Sales Funnel.

There are well-known Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Sales which, just like images, are worth a thousand words, and especially when it comes to Financial Services or Banking Products Sales, a field of activities where more than anywhere else, performance is law, right?

Some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can literally take your Sales Department to a whole new level; unfortunately, very few realize that.  We are thinking about all these C-level Managers here that we have come to run by over the years as a Software Developer and which have told us: « You know what? When it comes to Business Intelligence and those metrics that can tell you what’s happening with your Sales Force… well, the truth is, I’m pretty blind! »

Not that we would pretend to know or to understand perfectly the subtleties of operations of  all the many businesses at work in the field of Financial Services or Banking Products but just that, with 30 years of experience as a Software Developer including many large mandates for Banks and Financial institutions, well, we have acquired a certain expertise about what information exactly it is that Managers need and require to make sound decisions and to base their Business Development and Sales Strategy upon.

So what does the Manager – Sales Director – Marketing Director (CMO) really need to to get a clear vision of his actual Sales status?

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We will discuss 3 Web Development Best Practices that can help you safely launch your new specialized banking & financial services application. We should have said three Web Development Best Practices of security since security is so crucial in the Banking and Finance sectors and it is the main topic of this post.

Do we really have to go back and review all the security threats and online hacks and attacks that happened over just the last 5 years or so… I hope not?

All financial institutions and banks have developed a strict policy for systematically securing their critical clientele web applications. But they should also apply such a targeted policy when developing web applications dedicated to their personnel by making development choices that will address today’s security requirements and adapt to help meet tomorrow’s challenges.  Therefore, they must carefully identify all web access to database and process involved in these web application projects and assess the level of risk presented by each type of online communications or user group; ideally, at the development stage.

Because security fixing costs 100 times more to correct once in production than in development. So, it would save a lot of pain and revenues to test-find security flaws at the latter stage.

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A Gain vs. Risk analysis favors rapid development of financial & banks web applications mostly because it will shed some light on some potential design issues, which is no small matter if this happens when you’re already far down into the development process.

Whatever field of activity you’re in, if you’re thinking web applications, it clearly involves providing access in the field to both process and data to Clients and / or to the Sales Force.

And when it comes to Banking and Finance, security is of the utmost importance, of course, even more so if we’re talking mobile web deployment but one would be wise to go beyond the “personal data and hacking risk paradigm”, and assess accurately and globally the level of security needed around each of its applications and each type of data involved in your next web application development.

This exercise will benefit you by simplifying application design; thus, accelerating your web applications development.

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