Digital Transformation - Streamlining account opening with Nationwide

How do you streamline digital account opening and onboarding in financial services? Docusign and Nationwide Building Society recently hosted a webinar to discuss digital transformation and how digital tools can help organisations streamline the account opening and onboarding process. Stephanie Liais, a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Docusign, was joined by her colleagues Emily Wood, a Docusign Account Executive and Liam Coates, a Senior Solutions Architect along with Stephen Baron, Performance Development Manager from Nationwide Building Society and David Champion, eCommerce Manager from Nationwide Building Society to discuss the topic. 

During the webinar, the panel discussed how Docusign solutions could help those in the financial services industry modernise and simplify processes. The team from Nationwide Building Society shared how they have been leveraging Docusign eSignature to modernise processes including their account opening workflow and the benefits of doing so. During the webinar, Stephen and David discussed how crucial the account opening and onboarding process is and how it can really make a difference to keeping a customer. Here are some of the key highlights from the webinar:  

Why is Digital Account Opening and Onboarding needed? 

We live in an increasingly digital world, and the expectations of customers are changing. First impressions count, and a customer's experience of the account opening and onboarding process is crucial. Customers now expect to open an account easily without visiting a branch or manually signing anything. As this is such a pivotal moment for a customer relationship, it’s no surprise that digitising the account opening process has been a top technology priority for financial institutions for the last three years, according to Cornerstone Advisors research. Stephanie says, “It’s becoming a necessity - it’s mandatory not a nice to have” 

However, Stephanie also shared research from Capgemini which highlights there is still a gap or a disconnect between what a customer expects and what retail banks can offer:

• 92% of customers are dissatisfied with the Know Your Customer (KYC) process and multiple document requests

• 19% of customers are lost because of an untimely follow-up process

• 10% of customers lost due to ineffective operational controls and technology issues. 

Some of the most common problems associated with opening an account involve manual processes. 

Streamlining the Account Opening Process with Docusign

It’s possible to reimagine the account opening process with the Docusign Agreement Cloud. Docusign solutions can help create a fast, simple workflow for opening new accounts, cutting all of the unnecessary steps out of the process.

• Financial Institutions can use Docusign Guided Forms and Docusign eSignature to streamline the process of collecting customer information. 

• Docusign Click can collect consent to terms and conditions, privacy policies and arbitration agreements. 

• Docusign Identify can be used to authenticate customers in a seamless way that doesn’t require customers to visit a brand and meets KYC regulations. 

• Financial Institutions can collect signed contracts online with Docusign eSignature.

Docusign API allows electronic signatures to be integrated into the systems you already use, stored and archived. 

Nationwide’s Account Opening Journey with Docusign

Stephen Baron and David Champion of Nationwide, talked through some aspects of their journey with Docusign and the benefits and outcomes for their digital account opening and onboarding process. David says, “We’re aiming that people who take products out with us can use them the same day, so things like current accounts, savings accounts and personal loans are issued to users right away. It’s a key objective to get products working on the same day. It’s important in financial services to get people the things they need as quickly as possible and also in the most compliant way possible.”

Nationwide shared some of the key challenges they were facing in meeting that objective prior to partnering with Docusign:

• Nationwide has to be compliant with the Durable Medium; the regulatory provisions require that a firm must provide certain information to a client in writing, either on paper or in another durable medium. In the previous process for Nationwide, this often involved lots of paperwork and PDF forms for customers to complete - lots of those processes required manual intervention by a human. 

• Nationwide needed to reduce the average completion time for members' applications which could take a couple of days if received via post, and make it easier for customers to open accounts digitally.

Stephen from Nationwide shared that the average completion time of a new application opening for members is now just two and a half hours, rather than waiting days to receive applications back through the post. Nationwide can service customers quicker - and customers are getting access to the information they require promptly. There is no longer a need to visit and walk out of the branch with lots and lots of leaflets. 

Stephen says that Docusign has helped Nationwide to overcome the problems with Durable Medium; the Docusign audit trail can help the team update terms and conditions and other details and send them to customers in a timely manner. Stephen says, “We’ve used Docusign eSignature for our online journey and also in our retail ventures through iPad devices. We can give our customers what they need to see simply and easily. In the past, customers would leave branches with lots and lots of paperwork, and it has had a positive environmental impact. In August 2021 alone, we saved sending out over 2.5 million sheets of paper.” 

Nationwide said while they have already rolled out the Docusign Agreement Cloud in some areas, there are many more ‘use cases’ that can help brand colleagues get transactions done in a remote world. One project that is starting is going to address the workflow for personal loans, it will help employees that work on the phone to issue documents quickly. 

Financial institutions that are seeking to improve customer experience and increase productivity with a compliant process may like to read Digitise the account opening and onboarding process with Docusign.