Hot summer reads to enhance your financial institution’s digital strategy

Have you completed a work checklist ahead of your next vacation? Some items to cross off the list include composing an out of office email, updating meeting invites and contacting clients to tie up loose work ends. What about creating a reading list? The week before a vacation can often seem frantic, with numerous actions to take before a departure, so here are five “hot” posts from the Sageworks blog that can help you learn how to improve your digital strategy while you recharge on the beach.

Each blog post is a quick, two-minute read on various topics including electronic signatures, application programming interfaces and improving the borrower experience.

1. How to assess the quality of an API

There are several goals that many financial institutions recognize: improving customer experience, acquiring actionable data and scaling quickly. Application programming interfaces (API) offer opportunities to address those common challenges. However, it’s important to remember that not every API is built the same way or to the same quality standards. While one functional API may work for a partner, it might not be the right fit for a specific organization. It’s important to assess the quality of an API and understand what specific features will best benefit your staff and end users. Specifically, examine features and capabilities such as enhanced security, automated testing, and configuration and deployment controls.

2. Technology can help community banks tap into the “Buy Local” movement

Millennials, the largest segment of the population, are frequently visiting local farmers markets. Farmers markets are popular today, with more than 2,000 markets opening nationwide since the 1990s. As a financial institution, it’s important to understand what the dominant generation desires in order to reach potential borrowers. However, the “Buy Local” movement doesn’t stop at produce, breweries and restaurants. Community banks and credit unions can capitalize on the movement by communicating local benefits, such as ensuring money grows the local economy and supports staple businesses within the community. This, accompanied with an improved customer experience, can retain the tech-driven, Millennial market.

3. How to eliminate data entry from loan underwriting

Large banks and credit unions have dominated the $700 billion small business lending market in recent years. This is in part due to large institutions realizing the potential of automation in banking early and reducing data entry error throughout the life of a loan with technological advancements. A recent survey states loan growth continues to be a priority of banks and credit unions this year, so it’s critical that smaller institutions automate loan growth by utilizing digital applications that not only provide an enhanced customer user experience, but also shorten the loan approval process.

4. 3 Electronic signature benefits for banks

The use of electronic signatures is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.5 percent over the next five years, and financial institutions are predicted to drive the increase. Digital signatures offer numerous benefits for banks and credit unions, including increases in efficiency, cuts in costs tied to materials utilized during the underwriting process and security enhancements from encryption verification technology.

5. Sageworks’ Martin: A better borrower experience is worth offering

According to Time, The Telegraph, The New York Times, and Microsoft, the human attention span has shortened to eight seconds. It takes one glance at a smartphone to understand the level of convenience and speed that is expected by consumers today. While local banks and credit unions offer a degree of intimacy in relationships that large banks cannot offer, it’s important to re-think the speed of the borrower experience as well, according to Sageworks Vice President Steven Martin. Is it time-consuming for the borrower? Does it require excess paperwork? Can the workflow be optimized to increase internal efficiency throughout the lending process? These questions reaffirm the notion that time is money.

To access additional posts and helpful checklists aimed at helping financial institutions modernize their customer experience and incorporate technology advancements in their lending processes, visit our blog archive.

Additional Resources

Whitepaper: Using a Workflow System to Meet Institutional Goals
On-demand Webinar: The Process Improvement Process

About Sageworks
Sageworks offers banks and credit unions lending, credit risk and portfolio risk solutions to efficiently grow and improve the borrower experience. By automating the life of the loan with Sageworks, bankers book commercial loans faster and reduce risk. Sageworks uniquely provides integrated solutions and industry expertise to more than 1,300 financial institutions that achieve an average 38% higher loan growth than peers.