BIBA 2025: Inside the action - FullCircl’s key takeaways for a “New Era” of insurance industry growth

Sustainability – including climate, environment, social inclusion, and social equality issues – is fast becoming the most pressing issue facing the world, impacting all aspects of society and societal systems, including financial systems. 

Increased regulation, governmental and fiscal policy change, and perhaps most importantly rapidly evolving consumer attitudes and public perceptions are all accelerating the urgency for action. 

A long-term, sustainable approach centred around strong environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles is more important than ever. 

There is a huge opportunity for banks, insurance institutions, and FSIs that lead from the front. 

Those that invest in the transition, innovate, educate, and fund the future will differentiate themselves. 

In the summer of 2021, FullCircl held an interactive webinar attended by 70 FSI leaders to discuss how to create investment and build businesses that not only generate wealth but also produce positive impacts on society and the planet. 

The highlight of the event was hearing from Gillian Lofts, Global Sustainability Finance Leader at EY, and Rob Keegan, Regional Manager at Triodos Bank, the leader in banking products and services that make a difference to people and the planet. 

Here’s what they had to say… 

What are the key issues shaping the sustainability agenda in FSI? 

Firstly, regulatory pressure. 

Regulators increasingly see ESG issues as systemic risks to the global financial system, therefore there’s a huge focus on the ability of central banks in particular, and FSIs more generally, to better identify and quantify sustainability risks and develop frameworks to tackle them. 

In tandem with this, there is increasing governmental and fiscal pressure. Policy changes across all aspects of ESG concerns are continually nudging banks, insurers, and financial services providers, and indeed society at large, to make the changes needed now for a greener and more inclusive future. 

Finally, the FSI sector is facing pressure from the general public, customers, and investors, who expect them to take the lead, by implementing the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals and the targets set out by the Paris Agreement. 

They’re demanding more accountability, more transparency, and expect their banking providers to use the power of money to create positive change, with ESG right at the core. 

In 2021 financial services had reached a digital inflection point because of Covid19; perhaps 2022 is the year it has reached a sustainability inflection point. 

Respondents to an FullCircl survey suggest this is the case, with 82% agreeing that sustainability is a key issue for future growth and profitability in the FSI sector. 

Cutting through the misconceptions around embedding ESG 

Perhaps the biggest misconception is that embedding an ESG strategy costs more. Recent EY research in partnership with Royal London however suggests the contrary is true. 

The study reviewed more than 30 academic and other published papers as well as 2,000 global empirical studies across a 25-year period and found that corporations with strong ESG ratings perform better than lower credentialed peers on measures such as return on equity and return on assets, alongside stronger stock market performance and reduced share price volatility. 

Of course, early adopters may suffer inevitable first-mover costs, but making a strong ESG pledge now and setting out a firm sustainability strategy will pay dividends, even in just the course of the next 5 years. 

What are the risks of not driving ESG change? 

Perhaps the biggest risk of doing nothing is reputational – and the risk is real. 

The Zero Carbon Business Partnership, has indicated that 71% of SMEs couldn’t name a single web source for advice on decarbonisation and1 in 3 businesses are still not familiar with the phrase ‘carbon zero’. 

The Bankers for NetZero Project is working with Government to educate this 71%. 

FSI organisations that don’t act will eventually run out of road. The volume of risk around ESG issues will keep growing and become an acute reputational issue. 

The Government and the public expect the FSI sector to adapt, innovate and manage ESG risks; they must lean into the problem, assist the transition, and use their unique position to connect with all sectors of business and society to drive change. 

In doing so they’ll realise the opportunity to better shape future reputations, by understanding how ESG issues should inform their future approach, and what action to take. 

In FullCircl’s poll, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that the board of every FSI organisation should have continuous involvement in setting the sustainability agenda. They should lead from the top. 

Making ESG thinking fundamental to all decision making 

Leading the transition and funding the future means educating and engaging stakeholders, both internal and external. 

92% of respondents to the FullCircl poll agreed culture change must come from within, and that employees must be engaged sustainability efforts. 

Having a highly educated and motivated team and embedding ESG thinking is key to advancing the FSI sustainability agenda, achieving the greatest possible impact, and creating genuine and lasting change. FSI organisations must ensure that ESG risks are the lens through which decisions are made. 

Likewise, they must work to understand the ESG goals of their customers, seek out opportunities to educate, enable and fund change, and always ensure that ESG issues are on the agenda of every customer meeting. 

Putting ESG thinking at the heart of FSI 

Most FSI providers still don’t have a centralised ability to collect and analyse ESG data. This is down to three factors: 

1. ESG data takes many forms and can be found in many places – internal, external, structured, and unstructured 
2. ESG data changes quickly and constantly – it’s hard to keep up, let alone analyse and react 
3. ESG data is big data – analysing such data from news, social, IoT, and building a picture across the entire financial services chain, from suppliers to customers, is a huge undertaking 
   

Customer Lifecycle Intelligence (CLI) must therefore play a central role – from collection and triage of ESG data for due diligence and compliance, surfacing insights to sales and relationship management for prospecting, engagement, and onboarding, KYC, KYS, to ESG-informed C-suite decision making – if FSI organisations are to move in the sustainable direction future success demands. 

How FullCircl can enable you to hold meaningful ESG conversations with your clients 

Customer Lifecycle Intelligence from FullCircl provides instant access to sector news, which can be focussed on key topics such as pollution or cybercrime for example. This provides a rich selection of market news stories that can be used to inform customer engagements and trigger meaningful conversations. 

FullCircl Engage provides following tips, such as an ability to receive alerts from the Environment Agency, which in turn could trigger new business opportunities or uncover potential risks. 

By applying FullCircl’s taxonomy of 2,250+ topic filters to a list of target companies, FSI organisations can receive highly relevant, accurate and refined ESG insights that can be used to personalise messaging, improve client engagement, or generate content ideas. 

With CLI tools from FullCircl, this can be done at scale across an entire client book, giving users the ability to intimately understand their customer’s world, sustainability risks and opportunities, and use this to provide a better service through tailored solutions that both assist the transition and fund the future. 

Want to find out more? 

Relationships are like investments, says international author, Anthony Lannarino. The greater the investment, the higher the potential return. 

Neglecting a client for eleven months out of a twelve-month annual contract, for instance, would be a fairly poor investment. 

It’s all well and good showering the client with attention in the weeks leading up to renewal, but that’s a bit like claiming the value before you’ve tried to create it. 

Hardly the smoothest route into a conversation about money. 

So, what does a well-invested relationship look like? 

1. You always know what’s going on

What’s the biggest issue currently affecting companies in your client’s sector?

If you don’t know, it’s time to do some research. Understanding what matters to your client means that you can address their concerns and help them find a solution. 

Using Customer Lifecycle Intelligence tools such as FullCircl’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G™) and FullCircl Engage means that you get real-time updates on your chosen businesses and sectors so will always have the latest information at your fingertips. 

2. You are a problem solver 

If you know the issues impacting your client you can start to work out ways that your product can solve them. But that’s only part of the story. Don’t try to solve all of their problems with your product; sometimes advice or a referral to another business is the best solution. 

It may sound counter-intuitive, but if you can’t help, but know someone who can, their details are going to be valuable to your client – don’t be afraid to share useful information, even if it doesn’t directly lead to a benefit for your business. 

3. You listen 

There’s a lot to be said for listening – many experts suggest that you should listen for 70% of the conversation and only talk for 30% of it. 

Don’t assume that if you’re not talking, you’re not seizing the business opportunity; remember, if you’re not talking, you’re listening to your client and learning more about them. 

4. You show integrity

Deliver what you said you would when you said you would. If you said you would call the client at 9.15am on Friday, do it.

Whatever you promise you need to deliver. If you don’t, not only will you give them a reason not to trust you, but you’re also giving them a reason to go elsewhere. 

5. You ask the right questions 

Don’t ask the client what they know about your business or product; ask them what’s going on in their business. 

Not only will you find out useful information, but it can also be a great way to start a conversation that could help you spot an opportunity. 

Asking people when they joined the company and who recruited them will tell you lots about their position and standing within the organisation. 

6. You are persistent, not pushy 

There is a fine line between keeping the channels of communication open and calling a client so much they start to avoid you. 

If you’re going to get in touch have a reason to do so – an email congratulating a client on a big business win is better than a cold call. Put yourself in their shoes, how do you feel when businesses are in contact too much? 

Even if it’s not a sales call, communication should be regular but not annoyingly frequent. 

7. You are honest 

You can’t always answer every question you’re asked. 

You can’t always deliver an order when you said you would. 

But what you can do when things go wrong is be honest about it. 

Don’t try to bluff – if you don’t know something, admit it and offer to look into it. If things won’t happen when they should, let the client know and keep them informed about when they can expect things to be back on track. 

Ready to invest? 

We can help you build strong customer relationships that lead to business growth. 

Arrange a demo of FullCircl’s Customer Lifecycle Intelligence Platform. 

The relationship between insurer and broker has always been a mutually beneficial one, with brokers providing insurers with a valuable route to market, and insurers underwriting the risks for customers.  

As the link between the insurer and the end customer, brokers determine which policies are best for their clients and work hard to secure the best quality cover at the right price. Commercial insurance is often seen as complex to understand - especially for small businesses who don’t have the in-house expertise. Therefore, brokers also play a key role in providing peace of mind for SMEs that they have sufficient coverage for both current and emerging risks at the best price. 

But there’s a problem: all too often brokers struggle to serve small and medium enterprises (SMEs). 

With 99% of companies in the UK being SMEs, it should represent a huge opportunity for brokers, however the challenge when it comes to serving SMEs is one of cost-effectiveness. Lower value policies mean lower margins, so time spent servicing a particular SME quickly becomes expensive.  

But this is beginning to change. Automation and data science are transforming the market. 

According to CB Insights Insurtech raised a record $15.4 billion in funding in 2021, nearly double 2020’s levels, developing technology that helps support the important insurer-broker relationship, rather than disrupt or displace it.  

This has led to an influx of new solutions that automate time-consuming tasks, help brokers lower the cost of serving commercial customers, scale up their offerings and provide a better client experience. 

SMEs want a digital experience, as well as a human touch 

Business customers expects a service that is fast, frictionless, and personalised. But due to the challenges faced by regulated businesses, they often end up optimising processes rather than maximising customer relationships.   

According to the Insurance Brokers Global Market Report 2022, combining AI and human creativity will power the Intelligent Broker, an automation program for the insurance industry. Brokers will be able to resolve complicated obstacles, produce innovative products and services, and join or build new markets. In addition to this, the insurance industry will improve customer service and prevent customers from fraud. 

E-trading is making it easier for brokers to serve SMEs 

So, what are insurers and brokers doing to improve the way they work together and with SMEs? Much of the focus is on digital platforms and electronic trading (e-trading), which are automating tasks that were previously done manually. 

E-trading systems have been in use for more than a decade, allowing brokers to enter detailed information about their clients and receive a fast response from insurers. The advantage of e-trading is that it helps brokers provide better service to SME clients by streamlining processes and reducing costs.  

What’s changed over the years is the way e-trading services are delivered and how they connect brokers to insurance companies. In the past, e-trading systems were basic in function and often connected to just one insurance company: brokers entered client details and waited for the insurer to provide a quote.  

Today, e-trading platforms have become the primary method for doing business in commercial insurance, connecting brokers with dozens of insurers in a matter of minutes. 

Deeper company insights lead to better results 

The challenge for brokers with SME customers partly because it is time-consuming to gather all the information necessary to develop a full view of the risks they face.  

To help insurers to underwrite more effectively, e-trading platforms are now using APIs to connect to data sources that provide enriched company information on SMEs.  

By tapping into company insights like group structure, financial profiles and real-time credit information, brokers and insurers gain a clearer picture of how a company operates. This results in a better underwriting process and provides more accurate pricing. Even more importantly, it enables brokers to trade more policies and ultimately results in SMEs getting the coverage they need in a fast and efficient way. 

When it comes to supporting SME’s FullCircl has brokers covered 

FullCircl is helping brokers sharpen their focus on the companies that fit their specialism or verticals.  Part of that is helping them get the right data on small business customers.    

We recently partnered with Codat, the universal API for small business data, to provide seamless integrations to the accounting platforms used by 84% of UK SMEs.  Combining this data with FullCircl’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G™), Engage monitoring and business development applications, and Connect rules-based automation engine means that brokers get an instant real-time 360° customer view. 

Find out more by downloading our Insurance Broker Toolkit.  Get commentary on the biggest issues impacting the broking industry, market research, and free guides on handling underinsurance and the hard market. 

Neobanks may be best known for their consumer offerings, but they’re rapidly gaining traction in business banking. 

Digital-only neobanks have seen surging growth and adoption, with a big spike since the pandemic.  It is expected that the rate of Neobank growth will continue to accelerate as the digital model plays a critical role in the future of business banking delivery in the new normal. 

The neobanking market expects to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47.7% from 2021 to 2028. By 2028, the estimated market size of the neobanks will be $722.60 Billion 

A recent study by Savanta found that 10% of start-ups currently have their main bank account with a Neobank, 1 in 6 businesses are already using digital-only banking solutions, and importantly in terms of future growth, 40% of enterprises say they would seriously consider, or possibly consider a digital-first bank. 

What is a Neobank? 

Neobanks are 100% digital banks. Typically cloud-based, they incorporate disruptive technologies such as big-data analytics and artificial intelligence to deliver apps and online platforms to support their customers, rather than traditional physical branches. 

We’re talking about the likes of Monzo, Moneze, Atom Bank, Starling and Revolut – Neobanks themselves that are evolving from their earliest iterations as e-money offerings just a few years ago, to fully licensed banks today. 

Indeed, new neobanks are emerging all the time, such as London-based neobank Kroo which has recently secured a full banking licence from the Bank of England. Or Winden a neobank that offers financial products for digital entrepreneurs which has raised $5.3million in funding in 2022. 

With banking and financial services in a race to embrace and lead on new technology, customer-centricity, and streamlined processes, it looks like Neobanks are here to stay and that they’ll increasingly become a formidable sector in the business banking industry. 

Traditional banks v Neobanks 

So what can incumbents – traditional banks and perhaps even challenger banks – learn from Neobanks? 

Some incumbents have started to develop their own digital-only brands, whilst for others, the Neobanks’ rapid growth has been a wake-up call to modernise and discover new ways to improve customer experiences and deliver customer value. 

Of course, incumbent banks do have some advantages over Neobanks: 

• Strong brand equity 
• Trust 
• Longevity 
• Established customer relationships 
• Massive amount of customer data 
• Existing revenue streams 

However, this starting point of competitive advantage will quickly be eroded in a rapidly accelerating digital age if they fail to modernise and deliver the same customer value and experience that digital-first banks and digital-only banks deliver. 

Remove the burden of legacy 

As true digital natives, the agility and speed of Neobanks are due to the absence of legacy technology and the burden of complex internal processes and operations. 

They’ve invested heavily in data science and the latest advances in technology, so how can incumbent banks keep pace when legacy technology and antiquated processes make for often frustrating customer experiences? 

Legacy is only an issue if you let it be. Digital transformation is not purely about replacing outdated technology or improving the customer journey with a sleek front-end. 

It’s about incorporating the use of customer lifecycle intelligence to deliver a deeper understanding of the customer ecosystem and importantly, ensure that intelligence and insight flow across the organisation to improve risk management, speed up decision making, capitalise on new opportunities for advanced products and services, and achieve the ultimate goal of personalised banking experiences. 

It doesn’t have to be a big bang. It’s about embracing a digital-first strategy and finding the right customer lifecycle intelligence platform that will integrate seamlessly into your business and technology stack to drive both operational and behavioural agility. 

API-driven customer intelligence flows, data ingestion and matching for a 360° customer view, rules-based automation to pre-screen and onboard new customers quickly, continuous monitoring and compliance and high-value in-life support; the list goes on… 

Retire siloed decision-making and complex onboarding processes 

Many Neobanks have capitalised on providing slick digital onboarding processes and user experiences – placing them at an advantage during the pandemic. 

Incumbents must therefore reconsider their onboarding models to accommodate rising expectations for a simple and smooth onboarding experience. 

Business banking is far more complex than in the consumer sector, but investment in AI-risk analysis, fraud detection and open banking provides the ability to quickly harvest KYC data which means Neobanks are now snapping at the heels of their more experienced counterparts. 

Whilst incumbents have also invested heavily in data and technology solutions and built huge teams of compliance analysts to process and interpret the data created, their siloed decision-making, and analogue processes mean customers can still be subject to an incredibly disjointed process. 

Businesses can be actively sold to by one part of the bank, only to then be delayed, have the deal restructured, or maybe even be rejected by another division within the bank. 

Now more than ever banks need sophisticated compliance tools and procedures. The importance of harnessing automation, data and customer lifecycle intelligence cannot be underplayed. 

Digitisation and automation of risk management and KYC can enable incumbents to create real customer value by improving the efficiency and quality of risk decisioning, providing better monitoring and control and reducing the workload on onboarding and compliance teams by ensuring only the right clients are worked on. 

Harness data-driven flexibility and adaptation 

Incumbent banks have built their product and service offerings over many years and may not be as adaptable or flexible as a Neobank that curates products and services based on demand and need. 

What they’ve done so successfully is determine what customers actually need, spot gaps in the market and pain points within existing offerings, and then engineer solutions that differentiate their products in creative ways to attract clients by improving service. 

Incumbents can do exactly the same. 

But first, they must free themselves from a product-centric view, and instead start with a rich understanding of customer needs and how to align them with their bank’s capabilities. 

The wealth of information at an incumbent bank’s disposal represents a truly unique advantage, especially when combined with 3rd party and unstructured data from across the internet and social media. This can offer richer insights into customers, their ambitions, their needs and their strategic priorities. 

Importantly, this data can feed the analytics which guides the development of ever-more intelligent products and services, ensuring efforts are always focussed on the right place, at the right time. 

Build value-driven experiences and personalisation into customer journeys 

By focusing on innovation, speed, and differentiation fuelled by open banking, AI and API-enabled architectures, neobanks have the tools to focus sharply and address in a very agile way the actual needs of customers and their pain points. 

The result is that they offer experience-based value which serves to completely differentiate their offering. 

Today’s corporate and business banking customers know what they want and how to go about getting it – whether they be a high-net-worth individual expecting an in-depth conversation, a nimble SME seeking out slick digital experiences, or a large corporate looking for a blend of both for the ultimate in personalisation and efficiency. 

Keeping pace isn’t just about offering great service, but also requires a strategy that puts customer lifecycle intelligence at the heart of the business – from the frontline, to back-office operations and compliance/risk management.    

Customer propositions can no longer be static and one-size-fits-all—they should be intelligent and tailored.  So, for incumbents, successfully integrating personalisation must be a top-line agenda item. 

They must harness advances in data science and clever rule-based decisioning to build a deeper and more accurate understanding of every customer’s context, behaviour, needs, and preferences. 

This understanding, in turn, empowers an ability to craft intelligent, personalised offerings within customer journeys. 

The big lesson – Neobanks lead with customer intelligence 

McKinsey have on many occasions reinforced the importance of adopting a holistic, data-driven approach. They suggest suggests three major steps incumbents must take: 

1. Implement a real-time, enterprise-wide data infrastructure: that captures virtually all data points for a given customer’s relationship with the bank’s various divisions, and supports a unified customer view encompassing all channels, journeys, and products. 
2. Consolidate data on a central platform: to ensure that these enterprise data sets are utilised effectively and widely across teams, aggregate the data captured from multiple internal and external sources into a central customer data platform. 
3. Automate governance and controls: to ensure business and technology teams have ready access to appropriate data sets, with the necessary controls for security and permission where needed. It is also important to ensure that the appropriate data are available for decisioning, at the right time and in the right form, to the various AI/ ML models used by internal teams (from customer service to product management) to support intelligent, highly personalised interactions with customers. 

FullCircl provides one seamless solution to all three of McKinsey’s recommendations  

FullCircl is the leading customer lifecycle intelligence (CLI) solution that tackles banking’s most complex and high-value challenges: 

• Win the right customers - find, engage, and win the right customers for your business, products, and risk appetite. 
• Accelerate onboarding - fast, frictionless onboarding with automated AML, KYC and Credit checks that surpass both customer and compliance expectations. 
• Keep customers for life - Deliver proactive in-life customer care as new risks and opportunities emerge. 

We bring together… 

• Super-connected enriched data and insights on companies and the officers inside them – FullCircl Business Information Graph and API 
• A configurable, low-code decision engine to screen and onboard in seconds based on your specific risk profiles – FullCircl Connect Rules Based Decision-Engine 
• Continuous monitoring and timely intelligence for proactive first engagement and remediation – FullCircl Engage Monitoring and Business Development Applications 

…to help you compete on a level playing field with neobanks. 

To find out more get in touch 

Google is not a front-line risk mitigator, it’s a search engine. And yet as many as 4 in 5 financial service organisations still use it to drive mission-critical AML and KYC processes. 

Whilst Google has huge value as the ‘go-to’ online research tool, no mass market search engine is going to be suitable for high-value tasks such as Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Supplier (KYS) due diligence, or risk management activities. Google is designed to index the whole internet and carry out general searches. Whilst you can ask it a series of iterative targeted questions to eke out the answers you need, this is at best inefficient and hugely time-consuming, and at worst inaccurate or incomplete – meaning the chances of fraudulent transactions going through is high. 

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that the same survey also reported 47% of respondents’ time is spent processing data into a usable format. 

There’s got to be a better way than ‘Googling’ your customers 

According to PwC, financial services businesses use only 0.5% of available data.  Whilst those spearheading change in the financial services sector are looking to get more value from their data ecosystems; make it more useable, more accessible, drive more 

This presents not just an opportunity for improvement, but rather a transformation that is vital to the future relevance and efficiency of the FSI sector. 

Client onboarding is one of the most critical functions for FSIs, as it directly impacts client experience, servicing, and relationships — all of which, in turn, impact profits. FSI organisations must ensure they have an accurate view of their customer risk, remain compliant with ever-changing regulations, and, at the same time, not compromise on the customer experience. Failure to perform to the best of a bank’s  or FSIs abilities in any of these areas can lead to reputational damage, sanctions, and hefty penalties. 

Why then, you ask, would any organisation place their trust in Google for such high-value and highly complex activities? 

Why struggle when you can automate? 

Let’s look at a little deeper into the nature of the struggle for FSI professionals when grappling with data as well as how automation provides the solution: 

• False Positives – monitoring via Google may lead a researcher to wrongly categorise unsuspicious transactions as suspicious. For a typical financial institution monitoring KYC, 75%-85% of the alerts are false positives. By leveraging an advanced AI-powered rules-engine the risk of false positives is immediately reduced, whilst at the same time generating a deeper and more accurate view based on each institutions’ criteria and risk appetite 
• Need for supplementary data sources – Firmographic information alone isn’t enough to create the highly relevant insights needed for accurate KYC, CDD and AML. By harnessing the ability to ingest and match millions of structured and unstructured data points, financial institutions can quickly receive the impactful insights and risk intelligence needed to find the right customers, onboard them faster, and keep them for life 
• Duplication – Limited collaboration between front, middle and back-office teams creates duplication of effort and information siloes. This in turn leads to customer frustration. 12% of companies said they changed banks as a result of KYC issues, a Thomson Reuters survey found. Advanced technologies such as FullCircl are helping FSIs onboard business customers up to 94% faster with automated KYC, AML and credit checks. 
• Unclear data provenance/lack of data source – Lack of trusted and high-quality data is driven by inefficient data capture methods such as using Google. 
• Volume/monitoring unstructured data – The amount of data generated daily is mind-boggling. 80 to 90 percent of data generated and collected by organisations is unstructured; and its volumes are growing rapidly — many times faster than the rate of growth for structured data. The challenge with harnessing and monitoring it is becoming harder every day. Customer Lifecycle intelligence tools sucg as FullCircl’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G™) ingest billions of data points every day from a multitude of official and third-party sources, then match and enrich this information to unlock the most accurate and contextualised view of every customer 

Replace Google with Customer Lifecycle Intelligence from FullCircl 

Customer Lifecycle Intelligence by FullCircl brings together: 

• Super-connected enriched-data and insights on companies and the officers inside them – FullCircl Business Information Graph and API 
• A configurable, low-code decision engine to screen and onboard in seconds based on your specific risk profiles – FullCircl Connect Rules Based Decision-Engine 
• Continuous monitoring and timely intelligence for proactive first engagement and remediation – FullCircl Engage Monitoring and Business Development Applications 

To help you: 

1.  Win the right customers - find, engage, and win the right customers for your business, products, and risk appetite. 
2. Accelerate onboarding - fast, frictionless onboarding with automated AML, KYC and Credit checks that surpass both customer and compliance expectations. 
3. Keep customers for life - Deliver proactive in-life customer care as new risks and opportunities emerge. 

All within one platform! 

 What makes us unique? 

•  We are the only platform that goes FullCircl - The only technology partner who can help you find, onboard and retain the right customers for life 
• Proven CLI platform advantage - Easy to configure, fast time to value across digital and human channels, delivering super connected data and engagement insights 
• We invest in your success - Proven enablement program to get you to value quickly and ensure you stay there 

Metro Bank, an early adopter of FullCircl has reported that using the platform they have been able to automate many aspects of their operational process for on-boarding new customers or screening the back-book in a fraction of the time – at scale.    

Speaking about the experience of Ronan Heeran, Financial Crime Risk & Control Manager at Metro Bank commented: “We started working with FullCircl to explore ways we could introduce greater efficiency to the customer onboarding journey. We loved the idea of being able to aggregate data from a number of different sources and map our risk appetite using FullCirc’s rules-based automation to flag issues immediately. The result meant we could deliver a process which in some cases was 94% quicker than our existing process.” 

Likewise in the Insurance sector early adopter QBE, has reported that they’ve been able to automate many aspects of the commercial underwriting process which touch external unstructured data, FullCircl’s B.I.G™ could easily ingest. As well as the benefit of a simplified and consolidated underwriting process across all 200 of its underwriters.   

David Jones, Director of Underwriting at QBE commented: “the flexibility and configurability of FullCircl’s platform enables QBE to be proactive, rather than reactive, to changes in data for client assessment.” 

Let us prove we are better than Google 

 We love a challenge. In fact, we love it so much we guarantee we can help you quickly eliminate complexity, reduce cost to serve, really know your customers (and ensure they really trust you), embed sustainability and become 100% compliance assured. 

 So why not give us a try. Contact us today to review our product suite, API and web applications, and to set up your structured pilot. 

The payments market has seen considerable disruption in the last decade, with fintechs rewriting the playbook on customer expectations (both B2C and B2B) around how they send and receive money.   

Traditional cash and credit card payments are on a steady decline due to the increasing role of digitisation, making electronic payments the very epicentre of banking transformation in 2022.  

Global cashless payment volumes are set to increase by more than 80% by 2025, and the expected 86% shift to ecommerce will require heightened investment in online payment solutions. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The biggest disruptions in the payment sector are still emerging:  

• Open banking is set to create a level playing field for payment innovations that deliver faster settlements and cheaper payment rails – it is estimated that by 2025 there will be more than 27 billion Internet of Things (IoT) connections shaping the way we pay 
• Alternative Payment Methods (APM) continue to provide faster, cheaper payment services than traditional banks 
• Cryptocurrencies and crypto wallets are increasingly gaining popularity due to their potential to disrupt and simplify transactions 
• There is a growing appetite for emerging trends such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – NFT sales volumes swelled from $13.7 million in 2020 to $2.5 billion in 2022 
• Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) was one of the biggest retail trends in 2021 and this is set to continue in 2022. While emerging Pay Now Buy Later (PNBL) is becoming increasingly attractive thanks to its ESG credentials and potential product tie-ups 

Keeping pace with fintech disruption 

Traditional banks and incumbent payment providers, often hampered by legacy technology, are playing an aggressive game of catch-up when it comes to payment innovation and staying ahead of customer demands.   

Soaring digital payment volumes are leaving many banks vulnerable to disruptive competition. While banks still dominate the world of business transactions, in the consumer sector fintechs are winning market share by unbundling banking and financial services products and services, focusing in to disrupt incumbents by pinpointing and exploiting weaknesses in user experience and operational inefficiencies. Payments are no different.   

In 2022 the rise of open banking will further intensify competition, leading to a raft of new solutions for customers. Incumbent banks therefore need to adapt and find new ways to differentiate.  

The data advantage  

Across banking, data-driven intelligence is enhancing customer experience and driving operational efficiencies; the payments sector is no exception.  

The success banks enjoy will depend in a large part on their approach to data and its role in enhancing customer experience, meeting compliance requirements such as KYC and AML, and responding to regulatory pressures in a rapidly-changing landscape.   

The volume of data generated and handled in financial services is enormous, and in banks, 90% of useful data comes from payments. So how to turn that useful data into useful intelligence?  

Customer Lifecycle Intelligence for every payment department 

Business Development – find the right customers  

The difference between a profitable customer and an unprofitable one is shrinking by the day. Banks need to remain proactively up to date with industry developments, emerging customer trends and new opportunities for growth.   

Payment data is immensely valuable but for incumbent players with legacy payment structures, it is often held within silos, making it hard to extract and refine to drive new business growth. Banks therefore typically use Creditsafe, Experian, Google, and LinkedIn to supplement their payment data – a time-consuming process that still delivers a very fragmented view.   

To differentiate, banks need to leverage real-time customer data to provide personally tailored insights and proactive advice.  

Customer Lifecycle Intelligence (CLI) takes a data matching approach combined with real-time data to deliver rich and timely insights and applies each bank's individual rules to pre-screen customers for suitability. This reduces the cost to acquire by ensuring banks are efficiently pursuing the best opportunities.  

Onboarding 

A well-designed onboarding process is a sign of a great payment service provider. This will attract new customers and reassure them that they’ll soon be making and accepting payments quickly and easily.  

Likewise, onboarding new merchants is vital to growth and bringing in more transactions. However, banks that get it wrong run the potential risk of onboarding fraudulent transactions, which can impact both profit and reputation.  

CLI enables banks to provide fast, frictionless onboarding whilst reducing costs and improving compliance. Access detailed financial and historical company intelligence (shareholders, group structure, ultimate beneficial owners and more) from verified and validated sources, contextualised and mapped to ensure nothing is missed at any stage of the onboarding process.  

Identify key events like CCJs or Gazette notices immediately, by checking potential customers/merchants against global PEP and sanctions lists and stay ahead of changes as they occur in real-time.  

Continuous risk monitoring, regulatory and legal compliance  

Banks must continuously monitor and scrutinise customer intelligence and transactions as part of a risk-based KYC and AML compliance and risk mitigation programme. But many find it tough to balance their compliance, regulatory and legal responsibilities with customer experience.   

Similarly, an ever-growing amount of regulatory change and industry initiatives in payments can make it difficult to keep up. But having a team of people dedicated to following every update is a luxury few can afford.  

CLI ensures banks stop leaving themselves exposed by only evaluating a snapshot of risk. Continuous compliance provides a constant real-time 360° view of companies and merchants, ensuring banks can understand payment viability and mitigate regulatory risk proactively, rather than reactively, and keep the cost to serve under control – custom alerts automatically notify of any changes to credit scores, adverse media and other red flags.  

Retention – keep customers for life  

Competition from fintechs is likely to drive up the payments sector's cost of customer acquisition, as well as impact customer attrition. Incumbents therefore, need to revamp their retention strategies. It’s vital that banks provide high-value, in-life support to strengthen customer relationships as payment sector competition intensifies.  

CLI is about removing the siloed nature of payment data. Instead of banks losing time trying to collect and analyse a collection of disassociated data points, CLI provides a comprehensive 360° view, infused with sophisticated customer intelligence and constant monitoring of every single change to a customer’s information throughout the relationship lifecycle.   

With CLI banks can provide personalised experiences, improve retention and increase upsell and cross-sell opportunities.  

Better Business Faster  

2022 is set to see a seismic change in the payments landscape, with open banking driving innovation and higher consumer demand for non-traditional methods increasing competition. Payment innovation is not just the realm of fintechs, there are huge opportunities for banks to take advantage of if they can unlock the data challenge and build a customer lifecycle intelligence approach for a customer-centric cashless future.  

Get in touch with Donald Mbeutcha, FullCircl's payments specialist to explore how we can help unlock the intelligence you need to succeed.