E-Signing Boosts the Member Experience
An electronic push to create a comprehensive digital transaction for credit union members.
The $310 million Essential Federal Credit Union recently expanded its relationship with longtime technology partner, the Rahway, N.J.-based IMM, to add real-time, remote e-signing to nine parishes in the greater Baton Rouge, La., community. The credit union has leveraged IMM’s eSign platform for several years and just recently added these new capabilities.
Because the eSign platform integrates with all existing business systems, Essential can deliver an enhanced member experience, conduct transactions in a paperless environment and gain credit union-wide efficiencies.
“We were looking for a solution to increase efficiency for our members and staff by offering remote sign functionality, limiting the need to visit branches for loan closings, account or loan change requests, etc.,” Karesa Pierre, vice president of retail operations for Essential, stated.
“What we do is we allow banks and credit unions to create a comprehensive digital transaction life cycle that is fully electronic end-to-end. It eliminates the need to generate any paper along the transaction route at any point; it’s a total elimination of paper in the process cycle,” said Michael Ball, vice president of markets and strategy at IMM, which serves more than more than 800 financial institutions with its eSign solutions.
Pierre explained how the addition of remote e-signing capabilities is part of a broader strategy. “This solution will also allow us to acquire new members, loans and accounts digitally while we host community events and educational seminars. Everything can be completed from a mobile phone or one of our laptops or iPads.”
Pierre added, “The paperless environment we have gained from adding eSign remotely has made staff, and current and future members untethered to traditional paper-based systems. We have been able to physically take this technology to where our community prefers to conduct business, opening doors to potential members in untraditional locations.”
Essential has seen notable success by using e-signatures with several different outreach campaigns.
In addition to the traditional products, boat loans make up a large portion of the credit union’s lending portfolio, which is in large part due to the Mississippi River community it serves. The credit union routinely is onsite at boat shows and the remote e-sign capabilities expedite account opening and loan processing there, as well as at open houses with Realtor partners via an iPad. Pierre continued, “Doing business with our credit union has just become so much easier. We launched remote e-signatures in March of this year and within 30 days our document signing rate has doubled.”
Pierre revealed the credit union’s usage continues to increase each month. “We are averaging a 71% closure rate on remotely signed documents. We are also using the product in our collections area to offer our members needed modifications and loan extensions to help resolve issues quicker than usual.”
Getting documents to people quickly, generally within a 24-hour window, is very important, Ball expounded. “People will fill out an application, but something disrupts that before they close it and ultimately they never complete the process. Because we’re able to put those documents in front of them, literally within minutes of them applying for the loan and being decided and approved, the odds are they’re going to sign that and the credit union will see a dramatic reduction in those abandonment rates.”
Additionally, the credit union is doing something a little unique in that it is extending the remote offering to its onsite high school location, Panther Pride Credit Union. Students there are learning about the benefits of a credit union account and the associated services available.
Parents even take advantage of eSign remotely when a student opens accounts. Instead of being present at either the school location or the main branch, Essential members can complete account-opening transactions with eSign when and where it is most convenient for them. “This solution allows us to open new memberships and receive parental consents remotely. We are able to communicate with students and parents digitally, limiting the need to ever visit the branch or pick up the phone to communicate with Essential,” Pierre said.
Ball pointed out the prevalence of the word “digital” in the banking environment. “We all see digital transactions, digital processing, digital channels, digital transformation and digital strategies.” He added many times an institution will pursue an application, perhaps an online deposit application or loan, and don’t think about e-signatures. “What happens ultimately is without e-signatures, the digital process breaks down.” Even if they have auto-decisioning capabilities and the financial institution has a deposit or account opening product, or a system for loan origination, they can approve the new member or the new loan with e-signing capabilities.
With paper documents, “they then stop the digital process,” Ball noted. The member must then come into the branch to sign the documents, or the credit union has to courier or mail the paper documents to the member and wait for the member to return them. “So the digital process hits a paper wall and the process breaks down,” Ball said. “With our technology, we’re able to allow the remaining part of the transaction, the concluding part of the transaction, to also be digital. Our technology can present the documents in real time for the member to review and sign, thereby closing the full transaction in one online session and delivering a comprehensive digital transaction for both the credit union and the member.”
The flow of electronic documents also creates new efficiencies for the credit union. “Things that used to take days, maybe even weeks, to be completed in a paper paradigm are now going to get completed in literally minutes and hours,” Ball said. “That drives a whole new ecosystem of operational efficiency at the credit union without the resources needed for the old paper processes.”
Ball also noted, “Through our technology we’re able to also allow service transactions or maintenance transactions to occur in a 100% digital environment.” That, he maintained, drives value across the organization by creating a more dynamic experience for members, particularly if they’re coming in branch. “We all know that members don’t come into the branch quite as often, but when they do, you want to make sure you’re impressing them. They’ll find it more pleasing and perhaps less cumbersome.”
IMM provides three choices for verifying the identity of the remote signing party: A unique password assigned during the transaction; a knowledge-based authentication, which is a series of out-of-wallet questions; and mobile phone validation utilizing texted codes.
“That phone authentication is pretty popular because it’s also a form of dual-factor authentication, something you have and something you know. That phone becomes something you have and it delivers the code, which is now something you know and can enter into the transaction,” Ball said.
In regard to Essential, Ball held, “From when they first went live with remote signing, they almost immediately saw and realized that this was a huge win for them and their members, and that they had made the right decision by adding that capability to their existing in-person signing platform.”