Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the region, is transforming the branch experience with the roll out of ‘Cockpit Application’, a new user-friendly Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for front line staff.

The bank is also introducing a biometric digital signature and straight-through processing of digital forms.

Fifteen Emirates NBD branches across the UAE have already been equipped with these digital capabilities for select transactions, with a plan to incorporate all branches in the UAE in the next few months, adding in new automated services and transactions to the programme.

Suvo Sarkar, senior executive vice president & group head – Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Emirates NBD said: “In keeping with our commitment to be the first to offer our customers the most advanced retail banking solutions, we have leveraged digital innovation to create a superior branch experience.

“Smart, paperless and Straight-Through-Processing are quicker and more efficient, and result in a hassle-free banking experience. We expect this transformation to result in much shorter queues and faster transaction times, and an environmentally-friendly branch model, that will garner a highly favourable response from our customers.”

The Cockpit Application connects 14 different systems within Emirates NBD as a single entry point, offering branch staff a 360 degree view on a customer’s profile including segment, product holdings, personal details, next best offer and other big-data driven insights.

The application empowers staff to assist customers quickly and efficiently as it flags details including Know Your Customer (KYC) alerts on missing documents, opened service requests and complaints, personalised offers, digital banking subscription and activity status and much more in a single dashboard. As part of the overall branch experience transformation, the Cockpit Application enables branch staff to retrieve existing documents, to avoid the hassle of having to resubmit them. The bank estimates that the automation of service requests will result in reduction of millions of paper forms and savings of millions of dirhams in recurring costs every year.

In addition, Emirates NBD has implemented instant digital transactions via special tablets equipped to accept biometric digital signatures that are unique to each customer based on high precision technology. The system identifies customers through their Emirates Identity Authority Cards(EIDA) and enables the branch staff to seamlessly and instantly update a customer’s personal details such as EIDA, Passport, Visa, FATCA, trade license or contact details.

Ali Sajwani, Group chief information officer (CIO), Emirates NBD, said: “This initiative brings physical and digital banking closer than ever before from a customer experience perspective. It simplifies and further improves customer service, while supporting sales and advice activity with relevant data driven information. As a leader in digital banking, we innovate both at the front and back end, so as to automate our processes and operations resulting in a faster and seamless banking experience for our customers. In the near future, customers will only need to carry their Emirates ID, and our staff will only operate this cockpit application and accept digital signatures. This effectively means the beginning of a new paradigm in banking”

This launch of the Cockpit Application follows Emirates NBD’s announcement last year of a dedicated tablet banking app - the time saving app - created for its digital service ambassadors, who are especially trained staff deployed in the branches to help customers manage their queries and speed up their requests.

This initiative is part of Emirates NBD’s Dh500 million ($136 million) investment toward digital innovation and multichannel transformation of its processes, products and services.  – TradeArabia News Service