JT on EDM

Thanks to my friends at Bankwatch I heard today about eBank in Japan. The bank is described in this nice article on swiftcommunity.net. What struck me about this was the focus on complete automation of decision making – not just the processes and information colleciton, but the decision making itself. Is this the person they claim to be? Should we allow this person to open an account? I bet they also handle things like refunding fees, granting credit and much more in a completely automated way also.

I think this is the future of banking not only because mobile banking is exploding and absolutely requires this degree of automation but also because I believe that this kind of automation let’s staff in branches be more productive and more customer-focused and because it makes it possible for a “branch” to be a person with a computer – in a grocery store, in a mall, at an event. Taking banking to the people not people to the bank.

Let me know what you think.

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