Modernizing treasury management onboarding

Clients are frequently segmented into small business, middle market, and industry verticals to approximate their value and complexity and to determine the appropriate type of onboarding support. Industry-specific and higher-value clients utilize a broad array of complex treasury products and consistently add new accounts and services. Smaller clients typically use standard product sets and don’t require the same level of day-to-day support.

As bank technology continues to advance, client segmentation should be further refined to provide more tailored client support. For example, a company whose day-to-day transactions indicate frequent international wires and rapid growth warrants a higher level of bank support today; proactively recommending features or products will better meet anticipated client needs and maximize bank value. It is important to consider client segmentation but truly look at product/service usage, trends, and predictive analytics to derive key insights and provide value-added advisory services.

Focusing on a client’s full set of needs and not just its treasury requirements is critical for designing a seamless onboarding experience. Banks are redesigning the client journey to better overlay treasury requirements with those of client onboarding, deposit account opening, and loan origination.

Assessing the client experience for consistency is a critical first step. Is the client required to use different document upload or e-sign tools between lending and treasury? Is the client required to log in to two separate portals? Are the same documents being requested if you are setting up multiple products simultaneously? It is important to “walk in your client’s shoes” and connect the dots across experiences to make it feel higher touch and personalized.

Client requests that are high-volume, high-urgency, and/or revenue generating are top candidates for self-service capabilities. Opening new commercial deposit accounts for an existing client and adding them to existing services (high volume), updating primary administrators after an employee leaves or temporarily increasing wire limits to support the payout of employee bonuses (high urgency), and adding new remote deposit capture (RDC) options (revenue generating) are the types of requests clients are seeking to control themselves without bank employee intervention.

Self-service capabilities can be provided directly within treasury product applications (e.g., entitling non-admin users) but are also now being offered within bank digital channels (chatbots and client portals) that integrate with source applications via application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide straight-through processing.

While chatbots and client portals are prevalent in lending and retail banking, typically only the largest US banks have these channels as meaningful options for treasury. Expanding usage of these channels and incorporating artificial intelligence-enabled functionality limits dependence on sales and service teams for routine support inquiries and provides entry points for client self-service capabilities. These tools allow clients to conduct their banking when it is most convenient for them regardless of bank hours.

Banks must also focus on ensuring clients are directed to the appropriate method of support. Large multinational corporations may be less inclined to use a chatbot or explore a product offering via a client portal dashboard, but those may be the optimal engagement tools for the owner of a local small business.

Frequently, banks utilize multiple teams/departments to complete onboarding and servicing requests. Generally, this results in a slower and less transparent process with negative effects on both the client and employee experience. Some of the most common examples seen today include the handoff between sales and onboarding/fulfillment teams, as well as the transition between deposit account opening and other treasury onboarding teams.

While some degree of handoff/transition will always be required within the onboarding and servicing processes, banks continue to invest in workflow tools and updates to operating models/roles and responsibilities, as well as employee training to increase efficiency.

Today’s treasury employees support greater client complexities and more advanced products than ever before. Navigating transmission, file translation, and API requirements are now commonplace, yet the tools and trainings bank teammates are provided remain unchanged and outdated. As a result, many banks have indicated they are seeing high turnover in certain treasury roles, and training new teammates can frequently take a minimum of six months before they become effective.

Banks that recognize the monetary and reputational benefits of an upgraded treasury onboarding process are beginning to develop talent plans that include a mix of upskilling current employees and changing the skill sets hired for. Teams continue to enhance training programs to focus on continuous education, industry accelerators, and paths for career development—all with the goal of reducing new employee ramp-up time and reducing turnover to avoid the loss of critical talent.

A common complaint of treasury clients (and many treasury sales colleagues) is the lack of understanding and transparency regarding where they are in the treasury management onboarding process. Common questions include: What are the current or upcoming action items to finalize onboarding? What is the target onboarding completion date? Who is responsible for the next call to action?

Banks should develop clear and proactive client communication standards. Small efforts such as preconfigured communication templates, reminding clients of outstanding items before they are due, and outlining client expectations up front all reduce time wasted on ad hoc status updates and lower client stress. For banks developing treasury capabilities within client portals, this visibility can be automated and embedded.