|
BANKS CAN FIND SUBSTANTIAL COST SAVINGS QUICKLY
REVISITING STATEMENT DELIVERY STRATEGIES
Reducing Postage costs is just the tip of the iceberg, says MSI
For Immediate Release: April 8, 2009
For More Information Contact: John Reynolds (EVP Sales & Marketing) 405-463-3458
OKLAHOMA CITY - Myriad Systems Inc (MSI), a leading national provider of print &
mail, e-Statement, and web-based item processing solutions to U.S. financial institutions,
is recommending that financial institutions take a fresh look now at their strategies
for delivering periodic statements and ad-hoc notices to their customers.
“Many financial institutions have had their statement production on autopilot for
years”, says Shaun Riney, president of MSI. “In the mean time, customer preferences
for content delivery, new techniques for leveraging mailing efficiencies, and improved
electronic content delivery have created increasingly compelling savings potential
that most banks are not yet taking advantage of.”
MSI highlights, for example, a number of trends that can streamline a bank’s content
delivery to its customers while substantially reducing costs:
Improved eStatement interfaces help wean customers off paper.
Although industry e-Statement adoption is now approaching 60%, the vast majority
of those customers are also getting paper statements which rob thousands in paper,
printing and postage costs from a bank’s bottom line. Consumer reluctance to let
go of paper is largely because consumers like the immediacy of paper-in-hand when
reviewing their finances, and want assured access to statement histories for later
research. Most electronic statement deployments consist of merely a link to a separate
PDF file which lacks immediacy, is clumsy to navigate, prohibitively slow on mobile
devices, and completely lacks the ability to search for data across multiple statements.
Consumers have come to expect more.
MSI’s patent pending approach to e-Statement presentation solves all of these problems
simultaneously. By leveraging the Adobe Flash™ plug-in, now a staple in virtually
all web browsers, MSI’s e-statement appears seamlessly integrated with the user’s
online banking experience, and makes the process of opening, viewing, and navigating
the statement content dynamic and instantaneous. Advanced search capabilities allow
the consumer to search for any string of data across the entire history of statements,
notices and check images. And, the increased file efficiency of MSI’s approach means
that banks can provide a longer duration of statement history in the same amount
of disk space while improving its visual appearance.
“The key is that the electronic statement needs to be superior to, not just rival,
the paper experience”, continued Riney.
Electronification of Notices
Although the volume of notices sent by financial institutions has skyrocketed in
recent years, most banks are still exclusively printing and mailing daily notices,
even for their customers who have wholly embraced electronic statements. Integrating
notices with the e-statement user interface saves postage, and can force customers
to acknowledge reading new notices upon login, ensuring that critical account status
messages are getting through. Email notifications that a “notice is waiting in the
online banking site” further close the loop on customer contact. Consumers get the
information faster, and get it within the bank’s website where immediate customer
responsive action such as renewing a CD, transferring balances, or making a late
loan payment, are more readily taken.
Leverage economies of scale through outsourcing
Banks still printing statements in-house may be missing out on a host of functionalities
and cost-control measures difficult to cost-justify at the individual institution
level. For example, because MSI prints and mails for hundreds of institutions daily,
MSI has been designated an official Detached Mail Unit (DMU) of the US Postal Service.
With an on-site USPS presence, access to postal databases and sophisticated electronic
sorting capabilities, a well-equipped DMU can obtain significantly lower postage
rates that most banks can attain in-house. A good statement outsourcing provider
can also pool mailings from multiple banks when manifesting mailings for the postal
service, allowing banks with low volumes to enjoy the highest discount rates offered
by the postal service. When outsourcing, MSI also recommends that banks look for
a vendor who can provide online visibility and tracking of job status so that the
bank knows that its statements and notices are actually going out when promised.
Revisit Design and Layout
Banks who haven’t re-designed their statements in recent years to take advantage
of more efficient page rendering technologies may find that page counts can be significantly
reduced while improving the professionalism and readability of the statement data.
This can result in a 30% or more reduction in paper and postage costs on printed
statements, and rendering combined account statements can cut overall statement
production costs in half. Financial Institutions who move their statement processing
to MSI enjoy free design optimization as a by-product.
Employ “House-Holding” to Further Reduce Postage
When multiple notices need to be sent to a given account holder, such as when multiple
NSF checks have been returned, many banks are still sending each notice in a separate
envelope. House-holding technologies look for such occurrences and automatically
combine them into a single envelope, saving postage.
Replace Traditional Inserts with Integrated Marketing
A number of statement production companies now offer the ability for banks to replace
the traditional paper insert with advertisements and messages incorporated into
the statement pages. One of MSI’s latest products, CustomerConnect, provides an
online portal where banks can upload advertising bitmaps and animated video, targeted
to specific customer groups, for inclusion within the body of the online or printed
statements and notices. This allows banks the ability to more effectively target
their promotional messages, while saving with reduced printing, inventory, insertion
and postage weight. While most traditional inserts go straight into the trash, integrated
banners remain as part of the statement forever and enjoy increased readership.
To help banks identify additional cost saving opportunities through a statement
strategy audit, MSI is offering free consultation services through June 30 to any
U.S. Financial Institution. Interested parties can call MSI at 866-505-1730
for more information.
About Myriad Systems Inc
Myriad Systems Inc (MSI) is a leading provider of print and mail, online document
delivery, and item processing solutions and services for financial institutions
across the United States. MSI processes, prints, and mails financial statements
and notices; electronically archives statements, notices, and other types of documents
for online delivery and research; and facilitates the capture, processing, and clearing
of check images between customers and their banks, as well as between banks and
check exchanges. Learn more about MSI at www.myriadsystems.com.
|