Following a successful pilot in early 2020, RBS International has launched automated account opening for its eQ platform, taking the administration burden away for fund management and other financial services companies in the Channel Islands and Luxembourg. This launch is the latest development in the bank’s purpose to lead a digital transformation across its markets.
eQ is RBSI’s multi-currency online banking platform that brings together customer accounts, allowing users to make and manage payments and deposits across multiple accounts in multiple currencies as well as real-time FX trading. The new automated account opening feature speeds up the process of applications, with an intuitive interface which knows what information and documents to ask for based on customer inputs so there is total clarity on what’s required at the outset, to get the account opened as quickly as possible.
In addition, customers can re-use data and documents for key principals from previous applications, so they don’t have to start from scratch every time. The system also allows customers to track the progress of any given application at any stage.
Tom Colclough, Head of Customer Journeys at RBS International said “Opening a bank account is a notoriously difficult and administratively burdensome aspect of operating a fund management or a fund administration company. Know Your Customer requirements differ from one jurisdiction to the other and depend on the legal entity. Frequently there would be time and patience-consuming correspondence between fund administrators and bank staff to try and gather what was needed to satisfy bank policy, AML and legal requirements. The launch of eQ Account Opening automates the whole process, making it much slicker. Customers will know exactly what they need to provide and have visibility of where their account application is up to. It will save them time, frustration and phone calls.”
The next stage of the programme for RBS International is to roll out the functionality to the remainder of its jurisdictions (Isle of Man, London and Gibraltar) as well as ongoing continuous refinement of the system to automate more of the verification activities.
