When building new accelerators for banking and lending, Silverline looks at what is happening in the industry, such as trends and data, and listens to insights that our clients share with us. When we designed the Digital Account Opening (DAO) Accelerator, we created a solution for one of the industry’s most significant challenges – complete automation for digital account opening. 

Employees at financial institutions are struggling with outdated systems and manual processes. Customers are not getting the digital experiences that they expect from their banks, and are going to Fintechs or large banks for the level of experience they expect. The DAO Accelerator aims to resolve these issues by bringing a better digital account opening process on both the front and back end. 

The DAO Accelerator is built on Salesforce Flow for Financial Services Cloud, a series of tools that reside within Financial Services Cloud and are designed to enhance the delivery of Salesforce solutions. Here we delve into the benefits of the DAO Accelerator and how it can help provide digital transformation across banks and lenders.

The digital banking landscape is transforming

Consider the typical lengthy process for a loan application. The process begins digitally with the applicant filling out their details online and receiving the loan documents by email or even e-sign. But then, the applicant may be asked to go into a bank branch to show ID and sign paper documents in person, and the process suddenly turns from digital to manual. Add in manual customer due diligence (CDD) checks, and the whole process can take several days due to these lengthy requirements.

This example is just one instance of banks’ many challenges with digital account openings. With many consumers now having multiple accounts at multiple financial institutions for everything from auto loans to credit cards, there is a constant switching between banks to take advantage of new offers. And if a bank is not providing a seamless DAO process, then customers will quickly move on to a bank that does. 

Half of financial institutions are not actively engaged in digital onboarding activities, resulting in poor customer experience and reduced onboarding results. But banks that do stay attuned to customer expectations are seeing tremendous growth. Digital banks grew by 67%, with the percentage of new deposit accounts opened with digital banks growing threefold from 6% in 2017 to 18% in Q2 2020. 

But remember that pivoting to digital is not enough, especially considering that 40% of digital checking account applications are abandoned before completion. Although the process is digital, applicant conversion is low because of the lack of a smooth digital process throughout. Even when accounts are opened, applicants are still facing numerous steps, such as funding via micro-deposits and manual account/routing number entry. The Salesforce Flow for Financial Services Cloud DAO Accelerator aims to reduce these customer friction points and help banks succeed at digital account opening. 

A closer look at Salesforce Flow for Financial Services Cloud DAO Accelerator

The Digital Account Opening Accelerator is a fully automated end-to-end digital account opening workflow that is built atop Salesforce Flow for Financial Services Cloud. It includes productized integrations to Alloy, DocuSign, and Plaid to eliminate the need for manual intervention of back office staff for upwards of 90% of applications. 

The Silverline R&D team, The Foundry, created the Digital Account Opening Accelerator. The Silverline Foundry combines Silverline’s delivery expertise with our product development excellence to build solutions for the Salesforce platform. The Foundry’s key goals are to create accelerators that drive industry best practices, deliver greater value on a shorter timeline, and drive faster innovation for clients and partners. The Foundry team has built over 200 robust accelerators, AppExchange apps, and Lightning components. 

The Silverline Foundry took a design-centered approach to build the DAO Accelerator. They considered how the Accelerator should be organized and designed to deliver the best value, be positioned for expanded functionality, and ultimately drive beneficial customer experiences. Some of the considerations included: 

• Branding look and feel: The Accelerator maintains the same branding between UIs, so a customer will see the same page design on the bank’s portal as on its online banking pages.
• Customer account, application, and opportunity visibility: Because the DAO Accelerator is built on Salesforce, there is continuity out of the box across accounts, applications, and opportunities.
• ROI measurement: You can look at metrics and analytics on the front and back end to automate decisioning, such as for fraud checks and reviews.
• Third-party contracting, integration, and licensing: Alloy is a Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) platform developed to streamline onboarding processes for financial organizations utilizing Salesforce. Plaid is a platform designed to move funds from one financial institution to another in order to seed funding after initial account origination. 

Key outcomes from the DAO Accelerator

Silverline’s aim with the Salesforce Flow for Financial Services Cloud DAO Accelerator is not to completely remove the human side from the banking experience. We are repositioning time usage in a more impactful way so that mundane manual tasks such as reviewing low-risk applications or filling in a paper form are not a value-driving situation for your team. 

Banks and lenders who take advantage of the DAO Accelerator will be able to:

• Transform the banking customer experience: With modern digital capabilities, banks can speed up response time and meet evolving customer preferences – especially among Gen Z and millennials. 
• Supercharge productivity and efficiency: By centralizing activities within the Customer 360 Salesforce Platform, banks can provide teams with seamless collaboration and improved data and reporting. 
• Drive ROI: Banks will see improvements across conversion and acquisition rates as well as in Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Our accelerator provides a great head start to your automation journey with Flow. There are also many other use cases we see driving operational efficiency, like case and account management, agent onboarding, and loan origination. 

Silverline can help accelerate digital transformation

Silverline tailors digital transformation solutions to meet your current and future needs. Our team leverages insight acquired through more than ten years in the business and thousands of engagements, along with real-world expertise gained across the Financial Services industry, including banks and credit unions, mortgage companies, wealth management firms, investment banks, hedge funds, and insurance companies. 

Silverline is excited to bring the combined power of the DAO Accelerator and Salesforce Flow for Financial Services Cloud to financial services organizations, and our team of experts knows the best practices to ensure a successful implementation. Learn more about how we can enhance your Salesforce platform.