Digital Loans Made Easy

Getting a loan used to be a frustrating experience. But lending is changing. New digital players offer hassle-free processes, allowing applicants to get their money in hours—even minutes—not days or weeks.

However, traditional banks and other lenders find it hard to deliver such customer convenience. They are hampered by internal complexities, with people and teams working separately in silos. Procedures are inefficient, time-consuming, and far from transparent. Costs are high and customer satisfaction is low, with small business and corporate lending decisions taking up to five weeks.

Change is clearly needed. Yet investing heavily in new digital systems is unrealistic, especially in today’s financially squeezed and uncertain environment. There is another way. The lending process can be streamlined using your existing Microsoft Teams environment and Collaboration Manager in the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services. For many organizations, Loan Accelerator from Publicis Sapient is the most cost-effective way to make lending digital because it integrates with your existing systems.

Help Your Teams Work Together Seamlessly

The journey from application to loan closure has multiple stages, involving many employees. Tasks include Know Your Customer (KYC) vetting, credit underwriting, loan agreement, loan disbursement, customer communications, as well as potentially restructuring and renewals.

Collaboration between internal teams, suppliers, and services is vital. Yet organizational and data silos cause delays, with manual procedures often leading to errors creeping in. The process can get bogged down. An up-to-date, consistent view of the customer is often lacking.

Applying digital technologies and automating much of the process sweeps away the barriers. The entire process becomes streamlined, less effort is expended, and your customers enjoy faster service.

The benefits go further. With a full and accurate picture of customers, you can more easily identify new business growth opportunities. For example, by partnering with payments providers or insurance companies, you could offer a more comprehensive service that is more competitive and more convenient for your customers. Accurate data also allows you to develop new capabilities and services quickly by working with Financial Technology companies.

Make Exceptional Customer Experiences the Norm

No longer can organizations, even the largest, simply rely on their brand presence to attract customers. In every industry, the digital revolution shows that providing a truly personalized customer experience is the most powerful driver of growth. Companies that sharpen their customer focus and make operational and IT improvements can achieve up to 30% higher customer satisfaction.

An excellent digital customer experience minimizes the effort expended by loan applicants, for example by not having to repeatedly provide the same information during the process.

A well-designed process also enables employees to track loan applications in real time, so they can take instant action. Customers who are fully informed through regular, personalized communications are more likely to return with new business.

Implement Sweeping Gains in Process Efficiency

Lenders face growing commercial pressures. Historically low interest rates are squeezing margins, new digital entrants are creating competitive tension, and customer expectations are rising. All of which calls for lenders to raise customer service levels, but without increasing costs.

Gathering and analyzing data from every customer interaction is key to solving the conundrum. With the insights gained, lenders can improve process efficiency and use technologies such as artificial intelligence to help them make prompt, accurate decisions. Liquidity ratios rise, while employees become more engaged and more productive. Faster time to “yes” or “no” loan decisions helps lenders to write more loans in less time with the same staff. All of which adds up to happier customers and improved profitability.

Typically, a lender may expect to see:

Improved efficiency with more than 15% rise in productivity
Higher customer satisfaction with up to 20 points increase in NPS
30% faster mortgage decisions
20% increase in completion rate

Transform Lending with Minimum Disruption and Maximum Gains

There is no one-size-fits-all digital lending solution. Every organization must approach the task according to its requirements and existing systems.

Loan Accelerator, developed by Publicis Sapient, is built to use the capabilities of Collaboration Manager in the Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Teams, and the Microsoft Power Platform to generate, process, and deliver loan applications efficiently. There is no need to replace installed technologies because Loan Accelerator integrates with existing systems for rapid, cost-effective digital transformation.

Encompassing the entire lending process, Loan Accelerator supports customer communications, document handling, data management, process automation, and measurement and reporting. Lenders can expect to see substantial impact on their Net Promoter Score (NPS) performance, as well as benefit from faster and more efficient processes.

How to Transform Successfully – A Mini Guide

Transformation isn’t just about the technology and systems. Cultural change is also vital. One of the first steps is to create a clear vision for the transformation’s result. Communicating the vision to employees reduces their resistance to change. Training also helps to identify other potential obstacles.

Start the program quickly to create a sense of urgency and gain some quick wins. Then keep the momentum going with regular improvements and by rewarding employees who work hard to implement change. It’s also vital to make the changes stick by eliminating procedures that do not align with the new ways of working.

Helping You to Make Your Existing Systems Work Harder

Every digital transformation journey is different. Publicis Sapient first works with you to assess your needs, helping you to define your vision and plan new capabilities that benefit your customers.

With a solid implementation strategy in place, we partner with Microsoft to integrate all the systems, tools, and technologies needed to deliver a lending process matched to your business needs.

With the expert support of two trusted vendors, Publicis Sapient and Microsoft, you can be assured of a reliable, high-performance solution that delivers low-cost transformation of your lending process.

Industry Know-How Plus Systems Integration Expertise

The promise of Loan Accelerator is to digitally transform lending to reduce operational costs, without the need for costly new technology. Publicis Sapient ensures that promise is achieved.

We have years of experience integrating systems in the financial industry, coupled with proven know-how in Microsoft Teams, Azure, Collaboration Manager, and more. This enables us to not just accelerate your transformation journey but help identify and implement further opportunities to innovate the customer experience.

Loan Accelerator in Action

Rapid Remortgaging

A customer is looking to find the best remortgaging deal. They visit an aggregator site to search for eligible deals. The customer wants a good deal with an easy application process.

The broker is alerted and quickly sets up a call, recommending a deal which the customer likes and decides to proceed on the call. The broker uses the customer profile to automatically fill in the mortgage application, which the system uses to confirm identities, make credit checks, and request missing information. Within five minutes, the customer gets a successful application notification and a login link to progress their remortgage, helped by an AI chat.

Enabling Extreme Innovation

A UK bank transformed its end-to-end mortgage experiences by working with Publicis Sapient to implement a near real-time cache that stores important data that multiple applications can access. The solution streamlines the entire process of connecting complex systems.

The results have been remarkable. The bank has achieved about £4 million savings in infrastructure costs through advanced engineering and performance testing. In addition, it has been able to harness data to gain strategic business insights and launch more digital, customer-focused products, including real-time notifications, personalized banking, and fraud monitoring.