Digitalization has shaken up the lending industry over the last decade in so many aspects, that banks and NBFCs haven’t had much time to address each one. A vital aspect of lending, Customer experience (popularly termed as ‘user experience’) can make or break the loan origination process for lenders. Any slip-up by companies to become more user-centric, and they end up losing that customer – because of the goodie bag of choices that customers have.
Even in a highly advanced digital age, customers struggle to cope with shifting landscapes in the lending marketplace. The reason is plain and simple – digitalization isn’t evenly spread across the industry. While some banks and NBFCs have upped the ante in ushering in more digital lending initiatives, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, others are still reeling.
Older and some current loan origination systems have certain user experience-related challenges that have plagued the banks and NBFCs that deploy them. Here are the main pain points:
Customer experience (CX) in loan origination is a weighty criterion that can help retain loyal customers and attract new ones. There are umpteen methods by which CX can be bettered.
1. Smart Data Collection & Analytics
Understanding customer requirements and thinking patterns is the numero uno step in improving user experience. For this, oodles of customer data need to be gathered through data points like mobile apps, website visits, clicks through search engine optimization (SEO), etc. Data like previous lending activities, credit scores and loan profiles can even be sourced through loan origination softwares for the better understanding of customers’ spending and repayment habits. Marry all this data with smart analytics solutions available on loan softwares, and you have the platform to give a great customer experience to your patrons.
Analytics play a mammoth role in today’s gig economy lending. Since gig workers have irregular incomes, it becomes imperative to have more and better data points to analyze their creditworthiness for lending.
Regulations for banks and NBFCs are getting tighter, driving up the cost of borrowing. In this scenario, it helps if these companies can adopt business and operational models that are powered by new technologies. By harnessing the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML and Big Data through advanced loan origination systems), NBFCs can lower their customer acquisition costs, de-risk existing loan portfolios and create a good value proposition for customers. Using frameworks like Angular and React, NBFCs can offer a better UI experience.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an example of new technology that enables streamlining operational workflows and accuracy of credit decisioning. Using the magic wand of loan origination softwares – API (Application Program Interfaces), banks and NBFCs are able to connect seamlessly with internal and external loan ecosystems for wholesome loan offerings.
A rising giant in the lending sector, self-service is becoming more and more convenient for borrowers. Manual support is tedious; the customer service person must call the client to guide them through the loan application process, while online chat solves such issues instantly and efficiently. Chatbots, self-service kiosks at banks, live chat on social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook etc. are the main arsenal for lenders to capitalize on new customer acquisition. Although these are non-traditional solutions of customer support, lenders must expand their service channels to include self-service for millennials and digital natives. Use case – customers downloading loan sanction letters directly from mobile/web app or through chat. Such conversational technologies are changing the lending landscape to devise actionable insights and supercharge client interaction in real time.
Today’s loan origination process is fragmented across various channels – there are customers who prefer coming to the financial institute’s branch to get the in-store experience, others love online banking done through their laptops and tablets, while tech-savvy borrowers only have to touch a few buttons on their phone apps for the complete banking experience. Most lenders use a mix-and-match of these channels for origination, which although required, can sometimes lead to inconsistencies. It’s paramount for lenders to streamline their product offerings and processes across all these channels for a better experience for their customers.
A 2020 report sponsored by MeridianLink established that 85% of financial institutionsoffered online loan applications, while only 44% of them gave the option on mobile devices. Of these numbers, 66% allowed the complete loan process to be done online, and a measly 46% allowed completion on mobile. This not only goes to show how tilted the multi-channel loan origination scales are, but also the urgency of having an evenly distributed customer experience across all platforms of a lender’s loan origination system.
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Everything else being equal, customers will always choose a lender who personalizes their experience. This doesn’t only mean offering the right kind of product for your customer’s requirements; personalization includes timely and customer-centric communication, configuring products based on the customer’s credit history and reducing paperwork/documentation for existing clients. Eg. Language localization (Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, etc.) based on the GPS location of the borrower. Entrepreneurs/self-employed individuals would also get relevant product offers based on their business needs, and their loan origination flow will also be different.
Customers will certainly feel valued if they get personalizing emails, SMS’es, alerts and greetings. Eg. Automatic SMS/email triggering if a borrower comes out while filling out a loan application online. This SMS/email would focus on pulling the customer back into the form. Many loan origination systems can integrate with CRM tools (backed by Big Data) that automate the email and SMS marketing process, allowing you to explore new business segments, while ensuring a personalized experience for your existing clientele.
In a digital era where AI and big data are the cornerstones of technology, data security has become a big eyebrow-raiser. The more secure your digital lending endpoints are, the more peace of mind your customer has. Another way of winning customers over is by maintaining transparency in your loan terms and conditions, and ensuring that customers fully understand them. As long as the product/service meets the customer’s borrowing needs, they get a strong sense of trust in the lender and are bound to come back in case of further requirements, or could even refer their associates to the lender. A few steps can be taken towards data security:
Giving the customer a great loan origination experience is one thing, but to do it consistently, you must understand the customer’s journey. This is done by asking some quintessential questions about the customer and the process:
Be it a mortgage, an auto loan, a business loan, a gold loan, or a personal loan, giving customers a good user experience is now a priority for banks and NBFCs alike. It’s true that digital loan origination has reduced costs, improved efficiency and mitigated geographical challenges, but business sustainability will only be attained if lenders can perfect the art of CX.
Guaranteeing a spectacular customer experience, CloudBankin allows lenders to i) Automatically disburse loans within 2 minutes, ii) Disburse low ticket loans without any human intervention, iii) Capture the right user data and manage heavy-duty documentation with ease. Check out more features from here.
Commercial lending software is used by large corporates to avail commercial loans for addressing their short-term capital needs (both secured and unsecured). It is used to originate, process, disburse, and manage loans using a unified loan origination system. It can automatically categorise loans based on their value, type, and exposure. It is a unified platform for all commercial loan products. The software is accessible to all parties involved in the loan process. It allows for automated loan tracking as well as customization of alerts and notifications. It supports core banking features through real-time integration with various APIs. The report and dashboard provide a 360-degree view of a commercial lender's operations.
The main difference is: Loan origination, in simple terms, is when a borrower applies for a loan, and a lender approves it and disburses the loan amount to the borrower. Whereas underwriting is where the lender validates the borrower's creditworthiness against the credit policies and decides whether to approve or reject lending to the borrower. With the help of CloudBankin, lenders can manage their portfolio in a paperless way.
The most common tools used in finance to quickly onboard borrowers are cloud-based loan origination software and loan management software. Since technology has revolutionised the lending sector, lenders can now access their lending platform anywhere, anytime. Other advantages of cloud-based software include the fact that it is platform-independent (using only a web browser), enhances user experience, is much easier to update and upgrade, and generally maintains data integrity. The lending process consequently becomes effective in terms of price, time, data management, and security. Currently, our software is capable of handling 12 different types of loan products like Personal loans, Business loans, Vehicle loans, Gold loan, Line of Credit, Payday loan, Micro loans, Agri loans, Loan Against Property, Micro finance, Yearly salary loans.
Nowadays, financial lending organisations are finding ways to integrate their
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Overview Regulatory compliance for Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) has undergone
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An interesting insight on vehicle loans for lenders.
A trend we are seeing today – the first-hand vehicle ownership is decreasing with time. Why? People are upgrading their vehicles in every few years because of technological advances. And, this can be seen more with the millennial generation.
So, what should a lender do in terms of financing?
– Estimating the residual value of the vehicle at the start of the financing period.
– Charging a borrower only for the residual value (which is the difference between the value after a few years and the current value)
Example: A bike currently is INR 1 lakh. You want to buy the vehicle for 2 years. A lender will estimate the residual value of that bike today and what it would be after 2 years. If the estimated residual value = INR 45,000, the lender will charge you only that (say, INR 55,000 with interest for this instance) during your tenure.
At the end of 2-year period, you have 3 choices:
1. Return the bike and upgrade to a new one without going through the struggle of selling it.
2. Pay the lump sum remaining amount to own the vehicle outright.
3. Extend the financing and own it by keep paying the EMIs for the remaining amount of the vehicle for the next 12 or 18 months.
Benefits for the borrowers?
– Flexibility to use a vehicle and upgrade to a new one.
– Affordability to not pay for the complete value of the vehicle with the intention to use for a lesser amount of time.
– Convenience in owning the vehicle.
Say goodbye to the old lending option and embrace the new way of financing for vehicle by lenders!
How many of us know this?
1) Tiktok does Lending ( is it an entertainment company or social media company or a fintech company?
2) Youtube China does Lending
3) Top 100 internet companies in China(no matter what business they are in) do Lending
The team which was heading Lending in Tiktok was the Advertisement team. If we do Ads, we do X no of revenue. But if we do lending, we’ll get X+30% more revenue. This is on the same Ad spot.
Ad team has transformed into a lending team, and in today’s world, it’s possible because the subject matter expertise can be put in as an API and given to you.
Embedded Lending as a service is becoming popular in India too, and I am happy to be part of this ecosystem.
The answer is No. Only the top 10 crore people have access to many credit products in India. Almost all Banks focus on this market.
Once you go beyond that, the credit access rate has dropped significantly due to multiple factors.
1) Customers who are having low income(30-40K per month)
2) Not earning from an employer who belongs to Category A or B
3) Not from Tier 1 or 2 cities
NBFCs and Fintechs focus on the above segment, pushing another 10 crores of people.
But in India, 70 crores more people are formally or informally employed, which still needs to be tapped.
After smartphone penetration, people are not watching their SMS at all. They use SMS only for OTP related transactions. That’s it.
But What can a Lender see in your SMS after you consent to them?
Lender can see income, expenses, and any other Fixed Obligation like (EMIs/Credit Card).
1) Income – Parameters like Average Salary Credited, Stable Monthly inflows like Rent
2) Expenses – Average monthly debit card transactions, UPI Transactions, Monthly ATM Withdrawal Amount etc
3) Fixed Obligations – Loan payments have been made for the past few months, Credit card transactions.
It also tells the Lender the adverse incidents like
1) Missed Loan payments
2) Cheque bounces
3) Missed Bill Payments like EB, LPG gas bills.
4) POS transaction declines due to insufficient funds.
A massive chunk of data is available in our SMS (more than 700 data points), which helps Lender to make a credit decision.
#lendtech #fintech #manispeaksmoney