Basic aspects of dealing with banks - opening a new account, configuring a lockbox, structuring file delivery, and so on - are too painful, according to a survey of corporate treasurers and banks released on Monday.
Corporate clients said they experienced problems like lack of a clear view into the implementation process, poor communication with the bank, too many paper forms, an overly lengthy implementation process, and redundant information requested by the bank, at least 50% of the time.
"It's an interesting time for banks -- in the past they competed on functionality and products, now they are competing on customer experience," says Dave Robertson, partner and director at Treasury Strategies, the consulting firm that conducted the survey, which was sponsored by Wausau Financial systems. "Banks have realized they're too bank-centric, they make customers jump through hoops. They're trying to make the whole experience easier, more transparent and more intelligent."
The survey was completed by 19 banks with assets of $25 billion plus and 20 corporations with revenue $500 million and greater.
Wholesale lockbox is the most painful service for corporate treasurers to implement, the research found. Next were retail lockbox, online banking, and ACH. More than one-fifth of the respondents blame their bank for poor communication, failure to meet promises and implementation delays or errors in the bank services they use.
"There's a lot of opportunity to improve implementation processes, to make them faster, simpler and more transparent," says Robertson. "There's an opportunity to take out paper and move to an integrated data approach. Many banks will ask for the same information 10 or 15 times, they're not tracking workflow and status."
The banks surveyed, especially the largest ones, offer automated workflow and web-based dashboards, and some electronic forms for contracts and setup documents. But none use more modern technology such as electronic signatures for contracts or iPad and tablet-based forms and signatures.
The corporate treasurers for the most part (55%) said they would be more satisfied with their bank's implementation process if it could be sped up by using an iPad or tablet.
"Companies like the idea of an iPad, the immediacy of it," says Robertson.
And most (80%) of large banks and more than 50% of smaller banks would use an iPad/tablet application to gather data and signatures from the customer if they could.
Wausau offers an iPad-based treasury onboarding process. "The ability to do onboarding on a mobile device is something that's come into its own in last year and a half," says Joe Pitzo, vice president of paperless enterprise solutions at Wausau. The iPad app can handle data capture, approvals and email integration.
