Overview
FAIRBank or First Agro-Industrial Rural Bank, has thirty-six branches in four provinces of the Philippines; its headquarters is located in Daanbantayan, Cebu. The bank’s primary focus is to
address the needs of rural communities by offering basic banking services, and loan products micro, small-medium enterprises, and microhousing.
Customer Challenges
Customers were inconvenienced by being unable to conduct transactions outside their home branch. This caused the customers to travel far just to be able to make transactions thus.
Banking services were difficult to access due to the long lines.
Bank Challenges
Meanwhile, Fairbank had their challenges of their own. Many business processes such as Customer Authentication were being processed “manually”.
These cumbersome and time-consuming processes led to the inefficient use of staff, overworked staff, and human errors. These issues were attributed to an outdated legacy system and the maintenance of such a system.
Moreover, with decentralized system and multiple instances at branch level, it led to data and operation inconsistencies.
Compounding these issues, was the unavailability of proper 3G/4G network for reliable data transmission and connectivity. It posed the risk of latency in data synchronization.
Goals of the Project
Fairbank set out several objectives for the project with the least being the setting of a Customer-Centric Standard Operating Model for Microönance.
The business model required the maximum outreach to customers especially in remote location in far-flung islands.
Fairbank needed to increase the productivity and value of their Loan Officers and Field Agents through automation by increasing case workload without adding additional personnel.
Fairbank wanted to develop Self-Service options through the use of technology.
The Solution
Fairbank selected Bank-Genie’s Genie-Branch which is part of the company’s Digital Platform Genie-Transformation which provided a wide range of branchless banking features and functionalities including Loan Origination, Disbursals, Collections, Repayments, Cash Deposit, Credit Scoring, Commission Calculations, Enquiry, Mini-statement.
Technically, by consolidating the data in a centralized core banking system and the use of a middleware to synchronize distributed database, the issues surrounding the distributed and a synchronous legacy database were solved.
Working closely with FairBank in a highly focused and committed fashion, Bank-Genie delivered the project in a mere 16 days from Project Kick-off to Go Live with a lean and
dedicated team of 4 consultants.
The Results
Through this model, there was an exponential growth with 178 rural and semi-urban municipalities and cities brought under the Fairbank network using Genie-Branch.
It was achieved through a full-scale transformation of processes from manual to full automation thereby increasing efficiency by 70%. The caseloads per officer increased from 100 to 900 accounts.
Customer satisfaction improved as “the last-mile” access issues were resolved and the bank’s goal to promoted financial inclusion fully realized.
What's in it for our agents and clients?
Economic Empowerment
Increased Footfall
Positive Brand Association
Increased Proximity and Convenience
Lesser Queueing Time at Branches
What's in it for the bank?
Field officers will be focused on value-adding activities
Reduction of lead times in processing new loans by half
Growth in loan portfolio
Expand reach to unbanked areas without the need to invest for brick and mortar
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