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Shawbrook Bank experienced a 25% year-on-year growth in its loan book, necessitating the need for scalable platforms capable of handling a growing number of loan applications.

To onboard new clients effectively, the bank recognized the importance of loan origination, administration, and underwriting processes that were both fast and accurate. To enhance its competitiveness in the consumer lending market, Shawbrook’s consumer franchise realized the need to invest in a platform that could speed up the processing of loan applications. This investment in faster processing was seen as a key component of the bank’s broader strategy to succeed in the consumer lending space.

75%

decrease in loan processing times

1.1m

quotes handled per month

150

hours saved per month per underwriter

The CHALLENGE

Delayed Processing

The lending process at Shawbrook Bank previously relied on manual procedures, which resulted in extended validation and checking periods, causing delays in loan processing. This created a challenge for Shawbrook to efficiently handle loan volumes, leading to customer frustration. This posed a risk of potential borrowers seeking loans elsewhere due to the extended wait times, resulting in missed business opportunities.

Additionally, not addressing the processing times would have led to increased operational costs, typically associated with hiring more personnel to manage the loan volume. In the highly competitive banking market, ensuring prompt and efficient loan processing is crucial to minimize loan abandonment during origination and administration stages.

Key Requirements

THE CHALLENGE

Key Challenge Areas

Paper based compensation; high risk of error; manual approval of salary and offer letters; and, incomplete work, all contribute to holding up the onboarding process.

Adhering to and knowing all applicable labor laws requires a lot of manual attention. The larger your organization and the more geographic regions you operate in, the more regulations you must comply with.

Hiring managers need to collect information about new employees (bank, tax, personal details), as well as contact and health-related information. They must also collect referencing from previous employers. This can be a largely manual process with a high risk of human error.

At the end of an employment contract, outstanding holiday and financial calculations must be made and collated to send to a ‘leaver’ this often involves several processes and multiple involved parties. Access to sensitive company information must be revoked as well as any hardware collected.

Once an employee has been onboarded it can be time consuming to track disciplinary issues and employee progress (bonus pay outs etc.) usually involving data stored in different places and then manually collated. Late bonus payments or missed bonus payments can dent employee morale. Equally, if disciplinary records are not kept up to date, an accurate view of employee performance over time may become difficult to maintain.

A rushed, unstructured onboarding process can result in vital steps being skipped, leading to operational knowledge gaps and uncertainty. The effect of an unstructured onboarding process directly links to retention of employees.

OUR SOLUTION

Establishing a Solution

In collaboration with Shawbrook’s product and engineering departments, we conceptualized and built an efficient operational workflow solution. This tool facilitated the smooth handling of personal lending applications. Within a timeframe of less than four months, we successfully delivered the minimum viable product (MVP).

DELIVERY

A Phased Approach

We created a standardized onboarding process that was consistent across all geographies, departments, and roles. The process included digital forms, checklists, and workflows that guided new hires and stakeholders through each step of the onboarding process.

Using Pega, we provided a personalized onboarding experience to new hires based on their role, location, and preferences. This personalization increased engagement, satisfaction, and retention of new hires.

Our solution enabled the company to automate many of the manual and repetitive tasks associated with onboarding and HR, such as data entry, document generation, and approval workflows. This automation reduced the risk of errors, increased speed, and allowed HR teams to focus on higher-value tasks.

Pega's platform provided real-time analytics and reporting on the onboarding process, enabling stakeholders to identify and address bottlenecks, exceptions, and compliance issues in real-time. This visibility enabled the company to optimize its onboarding process continuously and improve its overall HR strategy

WORKING TOGETHER TO FIND A SOLUTION

Identifying the challenge

Initial considerations

Delivered results

Results achieved

Real results delivered

75%

decrease in loan processing times

1.1m

quotes handled per month

150

hours saved per month per underwriter

Our dedicated DevOps teams have since been diligently improving the application by incorporating more users and refining the workflow. Our main goals have been to provide a unified interface for employees working on personal lending applications and to achieve a high level of automation while still maintaining a human touch.

Reduced Human Error
By eliminating the need for manual data entry and implementing automated data collection from various systems, we can significantly reduce the occurrence of human errors. This automation process greatly minimizes the chances of inaccuracies and mistakes caused by human input. Consequently, it ensures greater data accuracy, improves operational efficiency, and mitigates potential risks associated with manual data handling.

Oversight
By implementing a number of Pega’s OOTB reports, we have given managers insights into the process and where inefficiencies may lie. Work management has also been implemented, removing the need for managerial work allocation by utilizing work basket features.

Automated Processing
By implementing 80% automation for initial checking and utilizing email automation to communicate with potential clients, the workflow has reduced the workload for loan administrators and significantly enhanced the speed and capacity at which Shawbrook can process loans.

Improved Customer Experience
Shawbrook has achieved a favorable balance of processing speed and personalized interaction by automating the workflow to handle data consumption while still enabling administrators to assist clients throughout the process.

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