A Smart e-Form for Effective Business Communication in the Financial Industry

The digitalization of the financial sector is progressing rapidly, and the conditions to survive in this sector are becoming increasingly smarter and more diverse. Therefore, to optimize the business processes of financial institutions, integrated communication channels using IT have developed, and smart e-Forms have emerged. Specifically, as a functional document format that includes business logic, smart e-Forms allow various types of data input such as photos, voice recordings, barcode scanning, and e-Signatures using smart devices. It is a mobile-based system that is linked with the company’s main information system to create and process e-Documents anytime and anywhere.

The OZ e-Form of FORCS introduced in this paper is a representative solution of the smart e-Form, which leads the e-Document industry. It supports both existing PDF files and XML formats in one viewer and also provides a look and feel similar to those of real paper documents.

Smart e-Forms must meet the changing needs of financial consumers in the digital era. The relatively younger generation of smart consumers prefer non-face-to-face channels to judge themselves in financial transactions, while those in their 50s or older still prefer face-to-face channels. There is also a tendency that the more assets one has, the more one prefers face-to-face channels. Therefore, financial services are developing multilaterally in both face-to-face and non-face-to-face channels. As shown in Figure 1, the e-Form utilization system for enhancing competitiveness in the face-to-face environment includes PPR (paperless and process reconstruction) and tablet banking systems, while the distance contract system through electronic signatures can proceed in a non-face-to-face environment.

Figure 1. Types of digital banking systems using smart e-Forms.

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The first step toward going paperless has been done by digitization, but this change has been limited to a “simple change from analog to digital form” in which paper documents are converted into images by using a scanner and characters are read through text recognition. Therefore, there is still an inconvenience in business processes such as scanning documents and inputting the content of the document created by the customer. From the customers’ point of view, these inconveniences also result in an increase in waiting time.

However, in the PPR system, the customer fills out a smart e-Form-based application form with a tablet and stylus. With a desktop monitor, the bank teller sees the same screen and helps the customer complete the application form through a real-time two-way communication channel. (Figure 2) This enables customers to apply for services, such as opening an account, immediately via an e-Form without filling out a paper application form at the counter. Inside the financial institution, the desktop PC at the counter is integrated with the legacy system and other information systems to complete transaction services in real time. This paperless system improves customer convenience and work efficiency and represents an adaptive, diversified financial environment.

Figure 2. The work process of PPR (paperless and process reconstruction) system.

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The tablet banking system acts as a smart branch to support business functions of financial transaction services wherever customers are located. It is a mobile system that is linked with financial institutions and can be used without the limitation of time and place. It can also scan ID cards by using the camera of a mobile device, thus enabling bank services such as opening a bank account, applying for a credit card or mortgage, or subscribing to financial investment products (e.g., funds). The tablet banking tool is provided to banking sales managers to perform efficiently and effectively. The process and the components of a tablet banking system are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The structure of tablet banking system.

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In practice, tablet banking is blazing a trail in the financial industry, and most of the major banks in Korea have implemented this emerging financial technology. As an example, through Standard Chartered (SC) Bank’s “Banking at your doorstep,” customers no longer need to visit branches for financial consultation or product subscription, as bank staff visit customers directly (SC Bank, 2018).

With the explosive growth of smart device use, consumers want instant banking experiences via their smartphones when doing things such as opening a bank account or making a financial transaction. Mobile banking services offer an integrated customer experience of self-directed transactions at their home or office anytime and on any device, allowing them to get things done with a touch of a button. The general process required for the distance contract system is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The process of distance contract system.

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Using sophisticated mobile banking applications, information security and personal information protection becomes more important because of threats such as hacking and leaking the customer and transaction information. Therefore, smart e-Forms provide a product contract process through smartphone-based electronic signature targeting non-face-to-face customers.

In February 2017, SC Bank (Korea) launched “Self Bank,” an application for mobile transactions (Song, 2017). Self Bank is a mobile financial platform that allows customers to sign up for financial products without face-to-face interaction by completing a user authentication process. It is possible to conduct transactions simply by checking the user without an accredited certificate. After the app is installed on the mobile device, the user takes a photo of their ID card and enters basic information. The user verification procedure is completed immediately with customer contact center through a video call.

Another example of the use of smart e-Forms can be found in Prudential’s Mobile Insurance Contract System, LiPS (Life Planning Service) (FORCS, 2017). Taking an opportunity to build a distance contract system and a seamless business model for its planners and customers, Prudential Life Insurance (Korea) adopted the OZ Distance Contract solution, which takes care of the entire sales lifecycle from meeting the customer to contract completion. After implementing the system, Prudential significantly increased their business productivity, and customers can now access insurance services at their fingertips.

As the digital environment changes, business communication strategies and paradigms are rapidly evolving. In the financial sector, especially, paperless environments and non-face-to-face mobile banking systems are spreading rapidly due to the emergence of e-Documents, which are considered to be the core of smart business. Based on a systematic review of the impact of digital financial services, the overall performance of firms is promising (Abbasi & Weigand, 2017). The benefits of adopting digital document-based smart e-Forms that lead these changes are summarized as follows (Burtylev, Mokhun, Bodnya, & Yukhnevich, 2013):

The best part of smart e-Form is that customers do not have to be at the bank for a financial transaction, and transactions are recorded in the bank’s central server in near real-time. The smart e-Form system can increase work efficiency by improving existing offline business processes such as document receipts, data entry, dispatch, and customer revisits, scanning, typing, and data extraction.

The system enables us to save costs such as paper and travel expenses and significantly improves productivity by switching from slow offline to fast online work processes. It can also contribute to reduce an institution’s carbon footprint.

A more complete form of the document can be obtained because digital forms can be validated to ensure there are no errors or missing information. Document security can be strengthened by eliminating the risk of leaking personal information that may occur during the archiving or disposal process of paper documents, preventing forgery of e-Documents and information leakage through the integration of security solutions and secured storage.

Finally, customer satisfaction can be improved through quick and accurate real-time processing, and customer reliability can be improved by providing repetitive accessing service of e-Documents through the Internet.

FORCS, which developed the OZ e-Form, a smart e-Form solution introduced in this paper, recently provided its tablet banking system to several financial institutions such as Nonghyup Operative Banking, KEB Hana Bank, BNK Busan Bank, City Bank, Jeonbuk Bank, Daegu Charm Savings Bank, Hana Capital, and Hanwha General Insurance. It has also won significant paperless projects from KB Kookmin Bank, Kyongnam Bank, NH Investment & Securities, Mirae Asset Daewoo, Lotte Card, Shinhan Life, and KB Securities. Furthermore, SC Bank and Prudential Insurance are also operating distance contract systems for non-face-to-face financial services. In particular, SC Bank HQ adopted the OZ e-Form as its global standard solution and is now expanding the “Mobility Platform System” based on the OZ e-Form, which is developed by SC Korea for its branches around the world. The first step projects for 10 countries in Hong Kong, Singapore, Nigeria, UAE, etc. have already been completed, and the second step projects are underway. As such, FORCS’s OZ e-Form is growing globally, not only in Korea but also in overseas markets such as Japan, Singapore, Southeast Asia, and China.

As such, FORCS has already carried out projects from many financial institutions and is carrying out many more. The driving forces behind these achievements come from high development productivity and capabilities to cope with diverse customer needs in the financial industry and differentiated technologies with specialized features including various input components. FORCS is expanding its e-Form service business into the software as a service (SaaS) market, which provides a standardized environment and applications based on CLOUD (Common, Location-independent, Online Utility on Demand) (Dermine, 2016). It is also aiming to create new value by combining with artificial intelligence (AI) technology in terms of utilizing and analyzing the data of companies and individuals recorded in e-Documents. FORCS has also been trying to increase the value of their system by combining with block chain technology. It is expected that in the way of distributing and storing e-Documents themselves, a close integration or interface between e-Documents and block chain technology can be possible, and there will also be possibilities of interface integration with other information systems or applications as well as implementations of the e-Document system.