Bank tech

Bank account applications lost over outdated ID checks




A new report has found that UK banks are losing half of new online account applications due to outdated ID-checking processes.

Identity confirmation provider HooYu revealed in its Digital Banking Benchmark Report that on average only 53% of online account openings are completed.

The report looked at the online account opening performance of five of the UK’s top retail banks and found that one of the key drivers for abandoning an application was the process of name and address checking.

When name and address data checks fail and customers are asked to bring their ID documents to a branch, HooYu found it caused a huge hole in the onboarding funnel.

The report also revealed how online account opening volumes had grown and how long it took on average to open an account online. 

David Pope, director of marketing at HooYu, felt that UK banks still had a clunky customer journey that killed the momentum of the application when a customer failed the traditional name and address check.

“Sometimes the customer is asked to come [into a] branch or sometimes the bank emails the customer to ask them to return to their site to upload an identity document.  

“Banks should integrate ID document checking and digital footprint analysis into the heart of their online application process so more customers complete and less customers abandon.”

Randolph McFarlane, head of partnerships at Intelligent Environments, added: “UK retail banks are still too slow to add new KYC [know your customer] technology to cater for the 30% or so of customers that fail the name and address check. 

“Banks need to look for new technology partners so the customer’s identity document and digital footprint can instantly be analysed and verified to support a quicker, smoother account-opening process.” 

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