How low-code drives digital transformation in Client Lifecycle Management and KYC

We live in an age of digital transformation in client lifecycle management (CLM) and Know Your Customer (KYC). Banks are regulated by a myriad of ever-changing global regulations that differ across jurisdictions. Keeping pace with these changing regulations, embracing digital transformation, and providing the customer with an optimal experience can be challenging to say the least. Regulatory and customer demands are forcing banks to implement change ever more quickly to comply with new regulations and meet high customer expectations.  

This creates pressure in the IT environment across banks to deliver and keep up with constant change. Traditional application development, followed by long QA cycles and deployments – and the risks associated with this traditional approach – no longer serve banks well in this rapidly changing, agile, and innovative world.

Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) violations over the past decade have resulted in fines that, collectively, run into the billions.

This is largely due to deficiencies in AML/KYC programs and the fact that technology solutions are not able to keep up with the pace of regulatory change. The lack of a customer-centric global view of the customer also leads to missteps in these BSA/AML programs. To support compliance needs and stay customer-focused, banks need future-proof technology that can adapt quickly.

But organizations from all industries are finding it increasingly challenging to meet IT staffing levels required for a technology-based economy. In fact, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts an increased demand for software developers, projecting the number of jobs will grow by 24% from 2016 to 2026, outpacing the average for all occupations. The shortage of skilled developers, rapid application development, and digital transformation have been major drivers for change. 

The solution? Low-code application development platforms. 

What is low code?

Low-code application development software uses tools like visual models, forms, and templates to enable users to build applications without manually writing software code. It’s a type of rapid application development that allows users to build iteratively. Low code is agile and makes it possible for non-programmer, business analysts or “citizen developers” to collaborate in the development process, creating greater overall potential for increased productivity and profitability. 

Enterprise leaders understand the importance of adopting low-code development practices. A Pega-commissioned survey from Frost & Sullivan of more than 400 senior executives from around the globe found that 81% of respondents already use a visual or low-code approach. Additionally, research firm Market & Market predicts that the low-code development platform market size is expected to grow from $4.32 billion in 2017 to $27.23 billion by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 44.49%. 

How financial institutions can use low code to stay ahead in their Client Lifecycle Management and KYC journeys

Low code can play an important part in digital transformation, global regulatory compliance, and providing a seamless customer experience. With low-code development software, role-based authoring experiences provide the right tools at the right times for everyone involved in a project, including citizen developers designing workflows, professional developers implementing complex integrations, administrators ensuring system SLAs, and data scientists building AI models. This type of collaboration helps speed design, review, and implementation of application changes. For example, banks can take advantage of low code’s visual authoring tools and agility to swiftly update their application regulatory rules to meet risk tolerances. The same approach applies to workflows, risk metrics, and case management – new changes and journeys can be setup using a UI-driven interface that empowers the business in the design process.

Use low-code tools to leverage the knowledge of industry-specific regulatory and subject matter experts. 

Banks can also supercharge the benefits of low code, agile development by modifying applications through packaged releases that can be quickly updated into your CLM/KYC software. For example, periodic updates to country and product-specific rules, such as AML/CTF, FATCA, CRS, FINRA, MiFID II, EMIR, Dodd-Frank, and IIROC, as well as regulatory changes for SEC, OCC, FinCEN, CFTC, FINRA, HKMA, MAS, FCA, and ESMA. The packaged updates, created by a global team of lawyers, ex-regulators, policy makers, and former heads of regulatory bodies, enable banks to make changes using a low-code rules management portal to bring an application up to date in a matter of minutes. 

Low code software enables continuous innovation while keeping up with the speed of business.

By adopting low code for Client Lifecycle Management and KYC, banks can stay ahead of constantly changing regulations, ensure policy enforcement, keep the customer experience consistent across all channels, and future-proof their software – all while decreasing application development and maintenance costs, and empowering the business to innovate in this digital world.

Low code enables banks to innovate continuously, build collaboratively, scale without limits, deliver consistent experiences, and achieve high productivity. Clearly this is the strategy the banks should be driving to remain ahead of the competition, put the customer at the heart of all they do, increase revenue, remain compliant in the face of local and global regulators, and be adaptable to change in this fast-paced industry.