NatWest is constantly identifying ways to deliver innovative experiences for customers and exceed their expectations. A big pain point for their customers was providing their identity documentation, which traditionally took days and multiple interactions across multiple channels. In partnership with HooYu, NatWest wanted to deliver a new seamless experience, allowing customers to provide documentation in real-time, while also improving onboarding conversion rates and reducing customer fraud.
Moving beyond traditional database checks to confirm identity
A significant number of NatWest customers fail initial KYC database checks to confirm customer name, address and date of birth. The status quo process was that customers that fail the database check subsequently receive an email, after the initial application, asking them to upload ID documents in a subsequent process, or come into branch with identification. At this point, a high percentage of new customer account applications stall and drop-off, resulting in customer abandonment and potential customers instead signing up with competitors.
NatWest transformed the customer journey to allow customers to go through the ID & V process seamlessly and in real-time. The HooYu UI is customer facing inside the NatWest site and customers are asked to take a selfie and to take a photo of their ID document and their utility bill.
The customer-facing technology from HooYu uses clever UI & UX tools to guide the customer through the process. For example, the HooYu UI automatically renders in whichever language the customer uses on their device, the customer receives helpful feedback and tips as they go through the process, and the customer can pause the KYC stage of their application if they don’t have all the necessary documentation to hand. The customer also receives SMS reminders from HooYu to come back and complete their KYC, driving customers back to the HooYu-NatWest UI.
In a matter of minutes, HooYu geo-locates the customer, authenticates their ID document, performs facial biometrics between the selfie and the ID document and checks the utility bill for recency and a matching name and address.
HooYu then cross-references and analyses the customer name, address and date of birth from multiple sources to build a customer identity confidence score. This new process has made it quicker for customers to complete account opening whilst increasing the level of Customer Due Diligence.
A report published by HooYu and Retail Banker magazine shows that only 53% of attempts to open an account online are completed due to overly long and complicated account opening and KYC practices.
The partnership between HooYu and NatWest enabled NatWest to improve the success of their account opening process significantly and deliver a better consumer experience for new customers applying for an account with NatWest.
How we worked together with NatWest to ensure success
The successful pilot involved more than 60,000 new customer applications. In June 2019, RBS integrated HooYu fully into its account opening process and launched their new account opening journey.
NatWest & HooYu conducted multiple customer testing sessions to gauge user reaction and we worked together to re-engineer several parts of the HooYu UI. The NatWest & HooYu teams worked in an agile manner, having daily stand-ups and reviews to analyse account opening funnel performance and created multiple account opening journeys to segment customer applications and KYC requirements to maximise success rates.
David Pope, Marketing Director at HooYu: “In today’s digital age, customers expect to be able to do everything on-demand, they don’t want to have to go into a branch or wait for a day or two or more for account opening to be completed. Our work with NatWest balances the twin demands of compliance and convenience. Our unique identity platform that combines many forms of identity verification technology is designed not only to bring extra security into the account opening process but also to make customer onboarding simpler and quicker”
