Alliance Bank’s Digital SME unit aims to address the financing needs of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in Malaysia, which are often underserved and seen as higher-risk compared to larger SMEs and corporations. The unit was established to meet these needs while maintaining high standards of service for business customers who prefer face-to-face interactions with relationship managers at bank branches. The bank believes in serving its customers throughout their life cycle by providing a full suite of products and solutions to support their growth journey. With Malaysia’s high digital penetration rate, there is a strong business case for delivering solutions to MSMEs via digital means.
Alliance Digital SME utilises a ‘test and learn’ approach with team members who are encouraged to think ‘outside of the box’ to meet the unique challenges posed by this target segment. The team worked as one bank involving front-to-back office employees, from the bank branches, product, operations and credit teams to define the target’s customer journey. Multiple iterations of varied solutions were deployed and improved based on customers’ feedback as well.
This enhanced digital SME journey was launched in 2022, with a first-of-its-kind customer experience (CX) solution in Malaysia. Under this, a virtual relationship manager is assigned to a customer to perform virtual interviews in replacement of physical site visits, to adapt to the customers’ needs which were also triggered by the pandemic.
The accompanying compliance procedures for customer checks, risk profiling, and others, are embedded in the customer journey on the remote video call at the customer’s convenience. Customers now have the flexibility to apply for a digital loan anytime, anywhere via their mobile device.
Through this CX solution, customers can spend more time growing their business rather than doing more administrative work such as queueing at branches.
Meanwhile, the bank has also introduced two fully-digital, collateral-free financing solutions to help MSMEs grow their business faster. Requiring only a single document submission via a simple online process, MSMEs can easily and conveniently obtain financing as low as RM20,000 up to RM1,000,000 without having to go to the physical bank.
Alliance Bank’s innovative solution has been recognised by the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards, with the bank clinching wins in the Fintech – Banking and Fintech – Financial Services categories.
The prestigious awards programme recognises exceptional companies that are leading the technological revolution and digital journeys of their respective industries to boost Malaysia’s ever-growing economy.
The Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2024 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company’s outstanding contributions in pursuit of technological innovation, please contact Danica Avila at danica@charltonmediamail.
