Customer Solution Case Study

Premier Nationalized Bank Automates Loan and Deposit Application Process

Overview

Country or Region: India Industry: Banking Customer Profile Bank of India is one of the countrys leading nationalized banks. It has 4,100+ branches and 50 zonal offices in India spread across States and Union Territories. Business Situation Bank of India wanted to enhance customer service by enabling its account opening and loan application processes on the internet. Solution Bank of India chose Microsoft SharePoint to internet enable 15 forms in an aggressive time-frame and with utilization of minimal resources. Benefits Eases loan application process for customers Increases efficiency and reduces turnaround time by 50% Helps serve all generation of customers irrespective of the location they reside in Digitization of all documents associated with a loan process

The automation of 15 application forms has helped us improve customer satisfaction, reduce turnaround time by 50%, increase efficiency and reach out to customers irrespective of the location they reside in.

Pushpinder Singh, General Manager, Bank of India

Bank of India (BoI) is amongst one of the premier nationalized banks in the country. It has 4,100+ branches in India spread across States and Union Territories. These branches are in turn controlled by 50 zonal offices. The bank also has a sizable presence outside of India with a network of 29 branches (including five representative offices) at key banking and financial centers including London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Hong-Kong and Singapore. With a goal to improve customer service, efficiency and reduce turnaround time for loan disbursal, the bank chose to automate its account opening and loan application processes. Bank of India chose Microsoft SharePoint to automate 15 forms and make them available online in a short span of time with utilization of minimal resources.

We decided to leverage Microsoft SharePoint as we already had the resources and skillsets to manage it. Besides, SharePoint offered outof-the-box modules for forms, with minimal coding and easy change management. Ease of development drastically reduced the time to market.

Situation

Banks usually have a plethora of physical forms that customers have to fill to avail of various services such as loans or for opening bank accounts. This is time consuming for customers as well as for bank employees involved in processing these requests. To enhance customer service by reducing turnaround time, Bank of India wanted to enable its account opening and loan application processes on the internet. By providing this facility, the bank wanted to cater to all generation of customers irrespective of the location they reside in. As a step towards digitization of the application process, the bank wanted to provide its customers the facility to upload supporting documents on the portal while submitting the forms online. Automation of MIS reporting and setting up a collaborative portal for information sharing within the organization were also high on priority for Bank of India.

out-of-the-box functionalities and faster time to market tilted the balance in favor of SharePoint, says Mr Ashutosh Mishra, Assistant General Manager, Bank of India. The bank also has a portal, called StarDesk, which is a collaborative knowledge and information sharing platform. It has been integrated with the banks collateral and loan application system. One of the challenges for the bank was the aggressive time-frame of 15 days during which it had to automate 15 loan related forms. However, with support from Microsoft, Bank of India was able to meet the deadline despite having a relatively small team (of 2 people) from the banks IT team involved in the development process of these forms. The forms that the bank has automated include: Account Opening Form: http://ola.bankofindia.com/Pages/AOFLa nding.aspx Retail Loans Star AutoFin: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/StarautoFin.aspx Star Personal Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/PersonalLoan.aspx Star Home Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/Homeloan.aspx Future Lease Rental: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/FutureLoan.aspx Star Education Loan: http://www.bankofindia.co.in/english/E duLoanForm1.aspx?from=new

Ashutosh Mishra, Assistant General Manager, Bank of India

Solution

As Bank of India embarked on this journey to internet enable these forms and automate processes, the bank found Microsoft InfoPath forms, backed with ease of consolidating these on SharePoint and associating workflows, would help accelerate the entire process. The bank has been using SharePoint for various needs such as intranet, discussion forums, document management system, and alumni portal for many years now and hence the team had skillsets on SharePoint. We decided to choose Microsoft SharePoint as we already had the skillsets to manage it. Besides, the ease of use,

MSE Loan: MSE Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/MSELanding.aspx These standardized forms were based on Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines to all banks. Once a form is filled, a workflow engine is integrated to process it with related departments for approvals, though the actual transaction closure happens with the help of BizTalk integration between backend systems and SharePoint. The bank inaugurated the automated form facility on its 107th Foundation Day on September 7, 2012.

The automation of account processing has helped reduce turnaround time for the banks customers.

Star Mitra Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/MitraLoan.aspx Corporate Loans: Loan for Corporate: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/Corporates.aspx Loan for Traders: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/TradersLoan.aspx Rural Loans: Agricultural Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/AgriLoan.aspx KCC Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/Kcc.aspx Dairy Farming Loan: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/Dairyforming.aspx Farm Mechanization: http://ola.bankofindia.com/loans/Page s/FarmMechanisation.aspx

Benefits

Based on the information that an applicant submits through the online process, we can find out if the customer is eligible for a loan or not.

Bank of India has been successful in enhancing customer satisfaction by easing the loan application process and reducing the turnaround time. The bank is now able to serve all generation of customers irrespective of the location they reside in. Automation of Account Processing and Loan Application The automation has helped reduce turnaround time for the banks customers while improving its efficiency in disbursing the loans. In the manual process, you may end up making a couple of visits to the bank to complete the forms and documentation, which can possibly take 3-4 days. However, with the automated system, the entire process from filling up the form to loan disbursal takes about a week, reducing the turnaround time by

Varsha Patkey, Manager, Bank of India

In the manual process, you may end up making a couple of visits to the bank to complete the forms and documentation, which can possibly take 3-4 days. However, with the automated system, the entire process from filling up the form to loan disbursal takes about a week, reducing the turnaround time by 50%,

50%, says Mr Dilip Gaikwad, Deputy General Manager, Bank of India. The automation process has proved to be a boon for the banks NRI customers, who can now avail of the services from any part of the world. There has been a 50% decrease in the time to process applications from NRI customers since the online form facility was launched. Within a week of launching the online form facility, as many as 250 applications were received. This has opened a new avenue for the bank to increase its customer base by reaching out to people who do not have the time to visit the bank to submit their loan applications. With the online loan application process in place, we are able to cater to all generation of customers, he adds. Digitization of Processes The solution also provides the facility to upload supporting documents on the portal while submitting the forms online. The bank gets the documents verified during the process of loan disbursal. According to Ms Varsha Patkey, Manager, Bank of India, Based on the information that an applicant submits through the online process, we can find out if the customer is eligible for a loan or not. Even if the customer does not fill up the complete details, we can still contact them for more information. This has not only improved the accuracy of the information obtained but has also helped us in knowing our customers better and in turn gave us a new channel of communication. Customers can now track their own application status.

Thanks to SharePoint, we have now digitized all our Board meeting proceedings. SharePoint is also used as our document management platform, which gives us more time to focus on our core business processes and avoid repetitive tasks, says Ms Patkey. Automation of MIS Reporting Bank of India is utilizing SharePoint for automation of MIS reports that are submitted to its branch offices. Collaborative Portal With the help of SharePoint, Bank of India set up a portal called StarDesk, which has enabled a collaborative environment for knowledge and information sharing. Prior to this, it was a challenge to track important communications within the organization. Bank of India can now keep all its employees on the same page with respect to important developments within the bank. The Way Forward Bank of India plans to further harness the power of SharePoint. We are one of the early adopters of SharePoint across all workloads. However, we need to market the online automation process and also add new modules to further improve our processes. We hope to automate more processes and provide better services to our customers in the next two years, adds Mr Gaikwad.

Dilip Gaikwad, Deputy General Manager, Bank of India

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com For more information about Bank of India products and services, visit the website at: www.bankofindia.co.in

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the Web. For more information about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, go to: www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

Software and Services

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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published October 2012