Financial institutions have always been running their businesses based upon trust and controllable risks. On the other hand, customer acquisition and retention are the key tasks that need to be continuously improved.
The bank statement has been taken an important role in communicating with customers for decades in Asia. For example, credit card bills provide not only the spending list for review, but also deliver personalised campaigns. The personalised credit card bills have become a part of life for people who live in China and Taiwan. Using statements as a communication strategy has been important to acquire and also retain valuable customers. A great amount of the operation cost reduction was possible as e-statements started to replace the paper ones.
Now the mobile technology, as well as higher availability of cheaper internet access, moved the communication into its next stage. People still read statements to manage their own financial wellbeing, but they are now requiring more interactivity and real-time functions. Applying mobile statements is necessary for banks to improve communication when physical branch presence is reduced. ‘One Bank’ is now possible to be implemented by integrating all customer transactions on one statement. It is also a way to cross-sell financial products as banks come to be the portal for accessing insurances, mortgages, funds, and wealth management.
Meanwhile, people are starting to think banks are not the only places to go for banking. Mobile statements are able to perform dual way communication.
FUCO&SOLUTION is a Taiwan-based company, we provide the most innovative mobile statement solution, which is interactive, robe-advisory, transactional, and social empowered. The big data engine behind the mobile statement software is able to combine the facts on the statement, and how people interact with the statements on mobiles. The interactivity brings more precise KYC (Know Your Customer) results. People can now exercise mortgage refinancing, assess their retirement plan with robo-advisors, apply for loans and instalments, as well as purchase suggested consumer products online with loyalty points.
The people who read the statements are most likely with better financial disciplines; they are the targeted customers that banks like. And they are aware of what they need, willing to spend a little bit more time to interact with the mobile statement to know a better way of managing their finances. Statement-centric communication strategy is nowadays more and more popular in Asia as banks are making it into an ecosystem. Almost 100 million mobile statements are generated from our software, with the loans and instalments have largely applied via them. Millions of USD profits are generated from this new and individual channel every month.
E-commerce will stand importantly for decades, traffics are important to e-commerce portal, they mean the revenue. Banks should connect more with e-commerce, not just providing a payment mechanism, but to share the customers with it. Working with e-commerce, banks are able to provide efficient financing services to both consumers and merchants. We successfully helped a bank in China to share the card holders with e-commerce. As a result, the synergy brought both card spending and e-commerce revenue. In addition, the e-commerce transactions enrich the credit records for scoring the financing prospects. It helps not only sales, but also betters risk control.
While e-commerce is leading the extraordinary economic growth in Asia, especially in China, we see that banks always want to be a part of it. We always believe financial technology contributes better business applications, to be the best bridge between financing and business.
The statements are one of the best ways for people to bank instead of visiting physical branches. Providing professional and accurate statements was already the responsibility in respect of customers. In addition, we believe the statements are the best media and communication channel to manage as long as banks can monetise it. Let’s make the statement more communicative, and monetise it while people go to braches less and less.