Process of opening a bank account shortened from 72 hours to 3 minutes

Goal

Laboremus wants to enable Ugandan banks to handle account openings in a faster and more efficient way. The basis for this is the digital transmission of all relevant documents to the head office via mobile app.

Challenge

To ensure smooth processing of the documents, high-quality scans are mandatory. A suitable SDK must therefore have functions that ensure easy generation of flawless scans.

Solution

The Scanbot SDK, with its cutting-edge Document Scanner SDK, provides all the functionality needed for high-quality scanning results and smooth back-end processing with Optical Character Recognition.


Key Results

Reliable digital archive

Higher customer satisfaction

Short processing times

How Laboremus could reduce their turnaround time by more than 144x

Digitizing banking workflows in Uganda is at the core of the Laboremus Group’s work, founded in Norway and now operating far beyond Scandinavia. The company’s customer onboarding software allows digital document transmission within seconds, decreasing the processing time from 24 to 72 hours to around 3 minutes – a time-saving result of more than 99%.

Digital workflows require high-quality scans of documents such as registration forms and ID cards to bridge the gap between customers and the back offices of their banks. Scanbot provided a plethora of features for this use case with its Document Scanner SDK module.

We chose to incorporate the scanning functionality of Scanbot SDK in our application as it provided us with the fastest scanning possibilities. And we are very happy with the quality of scans!

Lead Developer

Let’s take a look at the pain points that Laboremus could solve with mobile document scanning and transmission

Manual data entry is work- and thus cost-intense and prone to errors, leading to turnaround times of up to three days – a major inconvenience for both customers and banks. Digital alternatives to lengthy postal shipping based on taking photos of the documents often lead to blurry results which make it difficult for the clerks to deal with them efficiently.

Laboremus’s use case was especially tricky, as Ugandan banks are legally required to archive the registration documents to prove that their customers have signed off the terms and conditions. A digital archive is also required for internal audits and general document storage purposes.

The process before the Scanbot SDK

  1. A customer has to visit the branch office. There, they fill in the account opening form, sign it, and hand in passport photos and a photocopy of their ID documents.

  2. The responsible bank clerk in the back office reviews and verifies the documents.

  3. Afterwards, they open a customer file in the core banking system and create an account for the customer.

  4. A clerk working at the local branch office then calls the customer to inform them that the account has been opened and shares its details.

  5. The documents are stamped and kept in box files.

The process with the Scanbot SDK

  1. A client launches the mobile app with the integrated scanner.

  2. Then, they can position their mobile device over the document to scan.

  3. The camera automatically captures the document and enhances it for a seamless further processing. The user also has an option to capture the image manually, as known from the camera app.

  4. The user can add as many pages as required by the bank.

  5. The images are then appended to the account opening application and stored in a digital archive as a PDF file.

How Scanbot was able to provide a cornerstone for Laboremus’s streamlined workflow

To maintain a high-quality repository of important client-related documents and to streamline the workflow for both parties, it was essential to provide scans in an equal format and quality.
The Scanbot Document Scanner offered the perfect functionalities to reach that goal. Image-enhancing filters, automatic cropping and rotation, and various output formats deliver high-quality results that are perfectly suitable for further processing with OCR (Text Recognition) software.

Digital document transmission became as easy as 1,2,3 with the Scanbot SDK for Laboremus and its users.

By integrating the Scanbot SDK into their application, Laboremus was able to:

  • Decrease the turnaround time by around 99%.

  • Scan documents in no time with a high-quality resolution.

  • Easily retrieve documents from the digital archive.

  • Improve customer verification processes altogether.

Scanbot SDK’s mission and vision

Our initial goal for the Scanbot SDK was for it to read any text-based information via mobile devices – today, this has become a reality. The easy-to-integrate software creates virtually endless possibilities to streamline and facilitate processes for companies, employees, and customers alike, whether in document management, onboarding, sales, or HR.

We now build computer vision algorithms and machine learning models that understand all kinds of different document types. Our efforts open up even more possibilities for automated workflows that connect and process data in real time.

At the same time, we want to protect users’ personal data, which is why we opted for on-device intelligence. Scan results are encrypted before transmission to keep them safe from any outside attacks. To guarantee maximum privacy, no data is ever sent to Scanbot SDK’s or any other server.