Customer Pressure for File Sharing

The ability to receive files from customers was one of the earliest needs that banks and credit unions identified. As their customers began adopting file sharing services in their own businesses and daily lives, they began pressing their financial institution to modernize to offer them a digital solution to submitted documents. If they were sending copies of their W2’s and P&L’s to their accountant to prepare tax returns, why couldn’t they send the prepared tax return on to their bank or credit union rather than mailing it or dropping it off face-to-face with their lender

Secure File Sharing Portals: A One-Way Street

To accommodate customer requests, yet still meet the security needs of the institution and comply with regulator standards, banks and credit unions went on the hunt to find solutions to fit the bill. Most institutions came up with file share services that met their security policies but that have turned out to be nothing more than a one-way file share portal.

Yes, they keep their customers from driving to the branch or post office to deliver their documents which, meeting the immediate customer pressure they faced but these solutions have two critical downfalls:

• They require customers to create complex usernames and passwords and to login to minimally-branded third-party sites in order to upload documents.
• They require employees to separately request and provide instructions on how to use the service and separately monitor, retrieve and archive submitted documents.

The Burden of Stand-Alone Document Share Services

Because these file share services require the customer to initiate the file upload, this process requires the lender or account officer to initiate the request via a separate phone call, letter, or email. In these requests, the employee must provide their customer with instructions and links to access the file share portal, set up their account, and then upload the files.

On top of that employees must monitor the institution’s file share account for incoming documents from various customers, retrieve and download those documents, distribute the documents to various team members or departments, ensure the documents are archived (aka imaged) to the document management system (DMS), and ensure that the documents are used to clear outstanding exceptions, or ticklers. Whether the document share retrieval and processing burden fall to one employee, like the lender or account officer, or a whole team, like loan operations and deposit operations, it's abundantly clear that this file share solution is just as disjointed and time-consuming to the financial institution as their handling of paper documents.

Financial Institutions Desire for Integrated File Sharing Solutions

It hasn’t taken long for banks and credit unions to go on the search for a file-sharing solution that can streamline the work of requesting, retrieving, archiving, and syncing documents. With their eye on efficiency, management teams are pushing employees to do more with less, and everyone, from the frontline to the executive leadership team, has seen the advantages of integrated solutions. An integrated solution would not only make the work faster it would also eliminate human error and reduce tensions between employees.

So, how can banks and credit unions connect document requests, file sharing, exception tracking, and document management?

Total File Share Automation: A Guide

A total file share workflow solution must start with document requests and end with ongoing exception management with functionality that allows for the collection of forms and signatures, the routing of documents for review and approval, and the archival of incoming documents baked in. Let’s look at some key functionality that sophisticated digital file-sharing services can provide to financial institutions as you search for the best solution.