Interview with the vice president of Otkrytiye bank Svetlana Savinova

TAdviser: Profitability of banking business in the conditions of crisis continues to fall, and in such situation banks are forced to reduce costs including on IT. In your opinion, whether it is admissible in modern banking business to save on a content management system and, in particular, electronic document management? On what directions in large retail bank automation, in your opinion, is obligatory? Where it is still economically reasonable to use manual transactions?

Svetlana Savinova: For bank with an extensive network of divisions in the territory of the whole country selection of the reasonable amount of funds on implementation of technologies of effective document flow is quite justified. Especially if these technologies allow to organize the fast and well structured exchange of documents between participants of workflow. It should be noted that automation of the typical, often repeating standardized transactions is necessary today for all credit institutions which priority is sustainable development of business. Among such transactions it is possible to note work with documents on paper carriers, namely: processing of payment documents, credit and other requests from clients, data from legal documents and so forth. Banks aim to minimize the number of the documents requiring manual processing. An exception can be documentation which objectively requires individual approach and assumes a difficult algorithm of consideration for the purpose of decision-making.

TAdviser: Innovations in the conditions of crisis are capable to give a new impulse to business, to bring new clients and to hold old. Respectively, IT vendors respond to new requirements new products. So, with growth of popularity of mobile payments there were mobile applications allowing to automate input of payment data in mobile devices. What else innovations in the field of bank EDMS could you note? How similar original solutions in the field of management of electronic document management are demanded by banks? Otkrytiye bank?

Svetlana Savinova: We select from the long term for ourselves the strategy of the digital champion. For this purpose the bank implements the large-scale program of a didzhitalization under the name "îpenbank.ru". We provide an attractive product and high-quality service thanks to which our clients get digital access to services of bank, and they do not need to spend time and to come to office. We will develop further hybrid model of work with clients. She assumes interaction both through network, and through mobile and Internet banks. For this purpose shortly we will begin the project on restyling of network and transfer of retail business to a single platform. At the same time we develop also online model which will allow clients to make almost all banking activities in any place using the personal smartphone in the near future.

TAdviser: Let's address directly an implementation project of a system of stream input of data in bank. What its background?

Svetlana Savinova: Before project implementation in bank the solution of ABBYY FineReader Bank which allowed to process only three document types (payment and collection orders, payment requests) was used. To automate also other processes of bank, including processing of the client documents received on paper carriers, legal files of clients and their electronic storage the decision to implement the ABBYY FlexiCapture system was made.

TAdviser: What main objectives were set before IT department in terms of business?

Svetlana Savinova: Fast solution integration with the operating automated banking system (ABS), reasonable license policy.

TAdviser: Why the solution of ABBYY was selected? Whether the tender and who participated in it was held?

Svetlana Savinova: When choosing the solution two pacing factors - the price and extent of penetration of this solution of the Russian market were considered. ABBYY has a big partner network and experience of implementations in Russia therefore a choice was made for benefit of this company. The tender was held, three companies integrators took part in it, two of them presented the solution of ABBYY.

TAdviser: What areas of work with electronic documents were automated based on new EDMS according to the results of the project?

Svetlana Savinova: Completely processing of payment documents changed. The new project developed together with ABBYY allowed to improve this process, to considerably reduce labor costs by processing of payment documents, and at that stage at which it was especially relevant – acceptance of the document from the client and his transfer on execution. So the workers the front line conducting direct work with the client were unloaded. It helped to reduce waiting time clients of execution of transaction and released workers of the front office for the solution of other questions connected with individual customer service. Besides, according to the results of project implementation on scanning of payments and automatic recognition of payment instructions operational risks were minimized, and errors connected with a human factor are almost reduced to zero thanks to a built-in flexible system of automatic control over payment parameters. One more undoubted advantage of this project is an opportunity on its base to unify and centralize all processes participating in processing of client documents in all banking network.

TAdviser: What specialized equipment (the stream scanner, etc.) was required to be purchased and on what sections of work with documents?

Svetlana Savinova: Specially under the project of the technician it was not bought, in bank departments both stream scanners, and the MFP are installed.

TAdviser: Whether it was necessary to finish functionality of a system under requirements of bank? In what part?

Svetlana Savinova: The technical solution proposed by ABBYY allowed to integrate the system of recognition of data with the existing core banking system without difficult completions and costs for the additional hardware. The main direction - process of routing of packets: task allocation of verification between departments and remote offices, difficult rules of verification using reference books from the core banking system, integration into the core banking system (via the bus) and integration with a corporate system of content management (ECM).

TAdviser: Whether there was a stage of a pilot project? What problems the bank faced at a stage of replication of the solution on all branch network and how they were solved?

Svetlana Savinova: About 20 departments took part in a pilot project startup. The main difficulties which we met at a stage of replication of the solution on otdelenchesky network, - rather heavy distribution kit which was hard pumped over via channels and also connection to scanners which park was very different.

TAdviser: Whether third-party IT specialists in the project progress and for what purposes were attracted?

Svetlana Savinova: In the project we recruited the third-party contractor - DM Solutions company. Besides, the Inpolyus company which finished the bus TIBCO within integration of ABBYY FlexiCapture into the core banking system participated in the project.

TAdviser: What final parameters of the implemented system (performance, quantity of jobs, etc.)? How do you estimate the margin of safety of new EDMS in terms of business development perspectives?

Svetlana Savinova: About 350 users work with the solution, over 500 packets a day are processed. By 30 times front office labor costs on document handling, received from clients on paper carrier are minimized. After the bank held events for reorganization of the structure through accession of a number of earlier independent credit institutions working at other IT platforms to us it was necessary to meet the difficulties connected with use of different core banking systems. Now we are at a stage of transition to a single technical platform and its target implementation. After that again joined branches will be transferred to the solution ABBYY FlexiCapture too.

TAdviser: Whether the quantitative assessment of cost efficiency of implementation of new EDMS, what its results was carried out?

Svetlana Savinova: Calculation of economic effect shows that implementing solution allows to save on hiring of personnel in a back office (2–3 employees in perimeter of branch). It is an essential factor for banks with a wide branch network, allows to reduce business costs for operational division and to release time of employees of the front office for customer service and increase in level of service. The FC Otkritie bank took the third place in a ranking of factoring companies of Russia of RAEX at the end of 1 half-year 2015.

TAdviser: Whether development of a system in the next years is planned? In what directions?

Svetlana Savinova: In the closest plans of bank – implementation of similar processes for execution of currency documents of clients and their transactions with precious metals. Also we intend to organize electronic archive with the built-in algorithm of recognition of parameters of documents and implementation of the mechanism of the address according to links.

TAdviser: The purpose of any innovations – increase in efficiency of customer service, or decrease in the costs accompanying banking business. Under your assumptions, in the context of these two main goals of banking business how will develop bank EDMS in the next years?

Svetlana Savinova: To banks are necessary modern for EDMS, having extensive functionality and connected with identification of clients, monitoring of the customer base in terms of counteraction to money muling (AML), compliance to regulatory requirements of the banking legislation (Compliance), receiving and data analysis with the website of FTS and some other processes, necessary for modern banking business.