Case study from May 2023

With nine branches, almost 200 employees and around 14,000 members, Volksbank Mittweida eG is locally anchored, nationally networked, committed to its members, democratically organized and oriented towards cooperative values.

"Know Your Customer" (KYC) describes all the necessary steps to identify and verify (new) customers in accordance with AMLA obligations. Essential here is the audit-proof documentation of the customer data identified.

In Volksbank Mittweida's KYC process, it was previously essential to request documents from the customer during an initial meeting in order to create corporate customers in the core banking system. After submission, these had to be viewed and checked for completeness and up-to-dateness before a follow-up appointment was arranged with the customer and the data could be entered and created in agree21. In the final step, the documents had to be archived and the data and storage in the archive had to be checked. The entire process not only required long processing times at the bank, but was also hardly efficient from the customer's point of view.

In view of the previously time-consuming and cost-intensive manual effort, Volksbank Mittweida was looking for a solution for the automated creation of corporate customers. The declared aim was a real-time process with high data quality - taking into account an end-to-end view.

Volksbank Mittweida wanted to save its customers the effort of submitting documents; at the same time, employees were to be relieved of having to enter them manually.

In the new process, the data can be called up automatically during the first customer meeting - via live search and data retrieval at the touch of a button. Register documents can thus be viewed and archived immediately while the system creates the customer independently.

With the KYCnow platform, Volksbank Mittweida, which is subject to AMLA, now generates fully digital KYC files with all relevant information. The basis for this is an automated process that combines the identification of beneficial owners, linkage information and creditworthiness data, among other things.

Thanks to KYCnow, the bank benefits from extensive high-quality data sources worldwide, including SCHUFA databases, public registers and international company data.

For the immediate provision of the KYC data in agree21 and thus to Automatic investment by corporate clients the API tool "apiMatch" programmedwhich links KYCnow with the core banking system of Volksbank Mittweida.

With the help of the new API tool, customer advisors can create new corporate customers with just a few clicks:

  • 1. login with bank user ID
  • 2. free real-time search for companies via the SCHUFA interface
  • 3. retrieval of SCHUFA data on the company
  • 4. viewing the data and transferring it to agree21 and the archive

For example, if a client advisor creates a limited liability company, this is automatically saved with its management, company owners and beneficial owners according to the corresponding agree21 fields. The information can be checked or added manually. Changes are identified by a timestamp and a user name.

The system also automatically provides the new customer - the legal entity - with the reported personal number. The SCHUFA full information is retrieved synchronously with each customer creation. Once it has been created in agree21, it is automatically archived in the DMS / FCMS. Other documents for a customer, e.g. the SCHUFA MLA information, can also be ordered, displayed and archived directly with a click.

KYCnow saves time and resources when closing cases: bank advisors benefit from the automated KYC process by being able to create new customers in compliance with the AMLA right from the first appointment and rely on high and reliable data quality. Customers in turn receive a prompt response from their bank without having to submit any documents.

Shortly after the solution was introduced, the bank already recorded considerable savings in processing time: more than 15 minutes are already saved per case (with MVP). For Volksbank Mittweida, this means a monthly time saving of around 21 hours in total when creating corporate customers - capacity that can now be used for other purposes. The
The customer is naturally pleased with the accelerated process.

An outlook

Volksbank Mittweida plans to continue to significantly reduce processing times - to 50 minutes per case - with the aim of saving a total of 70 hours per month on customer deposits.

By connecting further APIs and implementing additional use cases, such as powers of attorney, updating existing customers, etc., the bank aims to further optimize its processes in the future.

Accelerated process: customer installation in the first appointment

Saving time and resources

Customer does not need any documents

Find out more about Know Your Customer and how we can support you with the AMLA requirements.