The News General DM News Banks admit they let corporate clients down on document management
10 September 2009
Banks admit they are failing to address the electronic document management needs of their corporate customers.
A survey of banks and their corporate clients undertaken by financial news website Finextra and Pegasystems showed key challenges for banks were in areas like account opening and management.
The survey found 63% of banks recognised that delivering Electronic Bank Account Management (EBAM) services was a great opportunity to win new clients and better serve existing ones.
But due to a lack of agility in bank IT departments, over 45% of them believed that it would take more than a year to undertake the necessary process and system re-engineering to enable it.
The survey also found that 44% of corporate banking clients would switch banks for a better service in bank account management.
The report says SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, and a small group of leading banks, corporations and IT vendors, have been working to help address the problem through the development of electronic bank account management standards.
“Through our work on the SWIFT EBAM steering committee, we understand the frustration of banks and corporates who struggle with the manual and cumbersome process of opening, closing and maintaining bank accounts,” said Adi Reske, senior product marketing manager for financial services at Pegasystems.
“On one hand, corporates need a better handle on their accounts and a standard way to communicate with their banks in this area. On the other, banks are finding it hard to respond quickly to initiatives like EBAM due to a lack of agility and IT resources.”
The report was based on the responses from around 100 banks and corporate clients.
The report can be viewed here
Last Updated (10 September 2009)
