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All banks devote huge resources
to producing paper-based documents for customers. Monthly statements,
other periodic reports, transaction confirmations, standard
advice letters and marketing materials are printed in vast quantities
and posted to customers using conventional "snail mail".
This is highly expensive for
banks and inconvenient for their customers. Moreover, because
such document production tends to involve legacy systems developed
many years ago using obsolete technology, it is difficult
to leverage the marketing and communication opportunities
offered by such mailings.
Enter internet banking and the web. There
is a growing number of retail banking customers – typically
the most educated, wealthy, sophisticated and ultimately most
profitable market segment – who rely wholly or in part
on communicating with their banks over the internet. These
customers value the convenience and control of accessing statements
and other financial information on-line – anytime, any
place and completely up to date. No bank can afford to ignore
this trend.
But existing internet banking services
are primitive in comparison with the potential which electronic
delivery promises in the future. Now, a new technology and
new way of doing business called Electronic Document Presentment
(EDP) is available to turn that potential into a reality.
An Israeli company called CePost
Ltd aims to become a world leader in EDP by providing
the tools to rapidly convert documents on legacy systems into
a variety of rich and flexible web formats. The secret of
CePost's approach is the use of the next generation language
XML (eXtended Markup Language). XML is the successor to
HTML, the language in which most web pages are currently written.
XML is more flexible and powerful. It allows the structure
of complex documents to be defined using standard "tags",
making it much easier to produce, manage, transmit and share
almost any type of document over the web. Most observers agree
that XML is the next big thing in document web technology.
CePost first converts documents on legacy
systems into XML format then stores them in an XML repository.
From here they can be automatically translated into any web
format (HTML, WAP, PDF etc) appropriate for particular delivery
channels (PC, mobile phone, PDA etc).
The benefits of this approach are significant:
- It is not necessary to change existing, difficult
to update and fragile legacy systems.
- Once converted into XML, a document can be
very easily tailored to suit different applications.
- Perhaps most importantly, this approach allows
documents to be personalised to the particular needs and
circumstances of a particular customer, making one-to-one
marketing a reality.
EDP has the potential to turn
internet banking into not just another delivery channel but
an altogether superior method for building rich relationships
with customers. Customers will be able to access important
information at any time in customised formats suitable for
display on a range of devices, together with personalised
marketing messages. They will be able to view documents, respond
on-line, download into archives, and search historical records.
Of particular significance, this approach will enable banks
to extend their internet banking services into high added
value future applications such as Electronic Bill Presentment
and Payment (EBPP). Finally, EDP can also be applied within
banks for inter-branch or intranet distribution of documents
via the web.
Summarising, EDP has the following benefits:
- Huge potential cost savings banks.
- Convenience and added value for customers.
- Better customer communication and personalised
marketing.
- A platform for extending internet banking
in new, added value services.
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