We are very proud to announce that MeDirect Bank has won ‘Best use of Technology in Business Transformation’ at the 2021 Malta eBusiness Awards.
The eBusiness Awards are organised by Tech.MT and are intended to promote and reward Malta’s Best Tech Companies and Solutions.
As part of MDB Group, Malta’s third-largest banking group, MeDirect Bank has established itself as a leading banking provider and innovator with customer experience central to its operations. The Group currently operates in both Malta and Belgium and offers clients a secure and easy way of depositing their savings across a flexible platform with a wide range of investment products.
The Group decided to transform its operations back in 2019 to become a retail-oriented digital bank. This has also had a pronounced change on MeDirect’s technology and systems, which leverage unique, flexible and scalable technologies that make it on par with some of the best FinTech companies currently on the market.
Our Technical Product Owner for Onboarding, Daniel Said, explains how the Bank consistently “works on improving the platform’s onboarding module whilst ensuring continuous compliance with a wide range of financial regulations”.
Since the last quarter of 2020, MeDirect successfully managed to transform the customer application process into a fully remote digital onboarding process. This new and simplified approach is aimed at drastically reducing onboarding time, while also providing unique and innovative UX features for an optimal customer experience.
Digital onboarding trailblazers
It is no secret that customer compliance regulations have become more complex over the past couple of years. MeDirect’s transformation allows clients to complete application in a matter of minutes in all countries we operate in. Not only is this convenient for customers and efficient for our business, but it also makes us the only Maltese-licenced bank that gives customers access to such a flexible online onboarding process.
Our innovative approach can also be scaled up with minimal investment, giving us a competitive edge over other traditional platforms. This updated process is very simple from a client standpoint, as they will only be required to submit personal details, a photo of an identification document, and a selfie with that document. This can all be done online from the comfort of the client’s home or office, without the need to visit any physical branch.
The remote onboarding process is completed by MeDirect through the required due diligence checks. This is undertaken together with our partners in Malta and Belgium who perform AML and KYC checks on a mostly fully automated process.
The Benefits of going Remote and Fully Digital
Ecommerce has now become an indispensable part of the global retail framework as people and communities become increasingly more digitised. The same can be said for banking, as most of our customers will have their first introduction to MeDirect online. As such, we wanted to stay ahead of the game by improving our online presence and processes.
MeDirect has obtained significant improvements by adopting this digital transformation – MeDirect is now able to scale up significantly with the same amount of personnel allotted for onboarding – 1 staff personnel was assigned for 125 applications per week before these changes, but now we are operating with 1 employee per 1,000 applications per week. This has led to an increase in customer onboarding numbers, with Belgium registering a year-on-year increase of ca. 50% and Malta showing customer acquisition growing threefold by the second week of November 2021.
Another positive impact of our digital transformation is the reduction in turnover times for our clients in Malta and Belgium, having made banking easier for our clients, who can enjoy instant access to all of our daily banking and investment services from our platforms. Furthermore, a fully remote and digital onboarding process has also led to a tangible decrease in the use of paper for the benefit of the environment.
We’re still not done!
Our team at MeDirect is honoured to receive this award by Tech.MT, as it recognises the positive outcomes that this digital transformation has had on both our business and our clients. Pawel Malukiewicz, Group Head – Channels and Customer Experience at MeDirect, describes how this overhaul would not be possible without the direct insights of the Bank’s clients, who continue to push the brand to develop our products and services.
“We are constantly identifying new ways in which we can improve our customer experience, by identifying emerging technologies and partnering with innovative compliance partners that allow us to fully realise our potential. MeDirect is working towards the introduction of further identity verification options, extending the onboarding functionality to the native mobile application, upgrading to more intelligent and dynamic look-ups, and using tools such as AI and OCR for automatic data population.”
At the heart of our digital purpose is our customers’ experience, which is why all our products and services have been tested, benchmarked, and adapted to provide a customer journey that completes with that offered by established global FinTech companies.
Lastly, such an award would not be possible without the top talent at MeDirect. This statement is seconded by our Chief Technology Officer, Chris Portelli who goes on by saying that, “this is one of the main pillars for the success of MeDirect’s technology transformation. As I thank all those involved for their dedication and hard work, I look forward to our upcoming releases within the digital onboarding space and other key initiatives MeDirect has been working on the past few months, including cards and other innovations in the investment space”.