Traditional banks, spurred on by COVID-19 and shifting consumer behaviours, are embracing the digital lending revolution to improve the customer journey and increase the profitability of SME lending. All they need is one partner, so long as it’s the right one.
Challenger banks have set new standards for excellence in customer experience, speed and lower operating costs that all other financial institutions must now match to stay competitive.
Outdated legacy systems are being swept away, replaced by innovative, cloud-based solutions that boost speed, transparency and user experience (UX). According to the Digital Banking Report 2020, 85% of banks and other lenders now allow customers to apply for a loan online, and it’s natural they want to provide the best possible experience.
Many are turning to agile fintechs to support them. Traditional banks and financial service companies no longer look at fintechs as upstarts and intruders in their field, instead considering them to be valuable partners for when they want to attain new goals – such as the digital transformation of lending.
Everything you need under one roof
However, banks often assume they need to partner with a different company for each feature: one that offers great UX design, one that can handle all KYC/AML needs, another to help assess credit risk, and so on.
Today’s consumers value convenience – but banks and financial institutions do as well. That’s why we’ve ensured Ezbob’s award-winning platform caters for every element of the lending journey, from onboarding through to disbursement.
Working with just one reliable partner to enhance the lending journey unlocks a host of benefits for banks and other financial institutions. It’s more economical of course, and the bank retains more control by only having to deal with one point of contact. A streamlined, one-stop approach also speeds up time to market and ensures faster upgrade cycles as new features become available.
Ezbob first operated as an online lending platform, processing more than £1 billion of SME loan applications, before pivoting to become a lending technology provider. Combining this expertise with a robust digital proposition, Ezbob has evolved into one of the most advanced business lending solutions available as the industry heads into 2021.
Our Catalyst Enterprise product is the only bank-grade, automated, paperless solution for SME lending that covers the entire user journey as well as all aspects of compliance, risk and decisioning. There’s a lot going on under the hood
- Smart onboarding - Financial institutions want to digitise the application process but don’t always know how to design a process flow that’s user friendly and easy to navigate. After extensive testing, Ezbob has perfected a UX that’s fast and logical, reducing the number of questions needed for an SME loan application by as much as 75%.
- Customer application decisioning - Ezbob provides a customisable decisioning engine for credit risk scoring and segmentation to be consistent with a bank’s specific underwriting requirements for credit policy orchestration, scoring models and affordability calculations. Our solution is powered by a unique combination of third-party real-time data and proprietary AI-enabled decisioning analytics, with up to 100% STP (straight-through-processing) that speeds up decisioning and reduces the cost of processing.
- Real-time data sources - Banks and other financial institutions want to improve the digital journey and improve risk assessment by leveraging integrated data partners and incorporating digital KYC methods into the process. The Ezbob platform aggregates information from over 40 real-time API-connected data sources to present better data that leads to better risk management and more informed credit decisions. We collect around 3,500 variable in less than one second.
- Cloud-based on AWS - Financial institutions want to outsource the cost of infrastructure, but in a secure way. Ezbob’s solution is hosted on AWS (Amazon Web Services), the most secure platform available. This cloud-based deployment means no upfront infrastructure expenses, immediate and unlimited scaling, and no ongoing maintenance costs.
- Plug-in integration – Financial institutions are challenged by the complexity of existing infrastructure and the number of integrations needed to facilitate the end-to-end flow. To counter this, we provide a stand-alone application that doesn’t require integration with core banking, speeding up time to market and lowering implementation costs. Account applications are seamlessly transferred to your CRM system daily.
- Value pricing – In 2020, we launched Catalyst Express, a scaled-back version of the full Enterprise edition, to democratise access to the latest lending technology. Catalyst Express includes many of the same features as the Enterprise edition that are essential for transforming and streamlining your application process (smart onboarding, decisioning engine, real-time data sources, and analytics). It can be upgraded to the full Enterprise edition as and when your business needs demand it.
Get in touch today to find out more about how our lending solutions can help you digitise processes and transform your lending offering in 2021.
