The digital transformation of in-branch account opening

There’s been a lot of talk about how customers only want to operate online nowadays. In response, businesses are focused on building or improving their digital experience — and they should be. Gen Z and millennials tend to opt for online experiences before in-person ones, but that doesn’t mean you can forget about your in-person experience. Businesses often overlook a big piece of the puzzle: consumers do not just want your digital experience to be seamless; they want your digital and in-person experience to be consistent.

Some industries have already started to embrace the omnichannel experience. Retail stores have been focused on connecting their online and in-person experience for a while now. In 2019, Nike revamped their in-store experience to connect it to their online store and mobile app. This initiative improved the experience by enabling customers to do things like request a different size directly on the app while they are in their dressing room or checking live in-store inventory. The other day, while I was at Home Depot looking for a very specific type of screw, an employee told me they were out of it because they couldn’t find it. Before I gave up and went to a different hardware store, I opened up their website and was able to see that they indeed had quite a few in stock. I showed it to the employee, and they took the time to track it down for me. In this case, the omnichannel experience not only spared me from another trip to a different hardware store, but it also ensured an (albeit small) sale for Home Depot.

What is an omnichannel approach to onboarding?

After the pandemic essentially caused in-branch banking to be impossible for many months, banks were forced to revamp their online account opening processes (among other digital banking capabilities) so that they could still acquire new customers. As a result, many banks turned to companies like Alloy for help automating their KYC/AML decisions and mitigating fraud during the online onboarding process.

Now that banks have reopened their branches, it’s time to bring your in-person onboarding process up to speed with your digital one. Often, Alloy can be looked at as a product that only enhances your digital experience. However, some banks are starting to see the value Alloy Onboarding can bring in-branch too. We recently shared the exciting news that Amerant Bank will be among the first trailblazers to leverage Alloy Onboarding to automate in-branch onboarding decisions in addition to their online onboarding, creating one standardized, omnichannel approach to onboarding new customers.

Benefits to an omnichannel approach to onboarding

1. Standardized onboarding processes across channels
   If your online and in-branch onboarding processes are different, your decision criteria could be different depending on the entry point of applicants. Using Alloy’s Identity Decisioning Platform (IDP) for in-branch and online onboarding will ensure that all of your customers are held to the same exact requirements.

2. Instant decision-making
   If your bank does not have an automated IDP in place for in-branch onboarding, it could take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few days to perform KYC/AML checks on your applicants. With Alloy’s IDP, you’ll receive a real-time decision - just like you would for online applications. This provides a better customer experience and frees up time for your employees to work on other things.

3. Identity and risk profiles for your customers
   When you use Alloy’s IDP for in-branch onboarding, you will start to build out your customers’ identity and risk profiles, tying their in-branch and online activity together and enabling you to see all of their KYC information and financial activity in one place. This information can inform future decisions on applications, suspicious activity, or which new financial products to offer them.

4. Real-time ID verification
   While it is significantly less common for a fraudster to use a fake form of identification in-branch (as opposed to using a fake ID online), it can still happen. With Alloy’s IDP, your tellers can upload a picture of the customer’s ID and have it verified instantly.

Ready to digitally transform your in-branch onboarding?

There’s a few different ways Alloy Onboarding can be leveraged for in-branch account opening. Some banks set all of their tellers up with access to the Alloy dashboard and have them input their customers’ info directly into our platform to run their workflows. Other banks use a front-end form that the teller fills out that connects to Alloy’s dashboard, runs the customer through the workflow rules, and then provides an instant decision.

Whichever way you decide to use Alloy Onboarding in-branch, the benefits remain the same. Alloy Onboarding brings an omnichannel approach to your onboarding process, holding all applicants to the same approval standards and providing an exceptional customer experience despite their entry point.