Apex Group: building a market-leading onboarding solution

The Challenge

The financial landscape is transforming. What used to be an industry characterised by lengthy, manual processes, is now an epicentre for technological advancements. Having to adapt to ever-changing trends, financial institutions are now placing greater focus on developing new and innovative solutions to replace traditional, outdated services. This allows firms to cut costs, increase capacity, attract new customers and improve customer experience, ultimately driving value and revenue. This is what our Elixirr Digital team helped Apex achieve.

Apex, a global financial solutions provider, were looking to simplify and digitise their client onboarding experience, starting with their banking services. The onboarding process was overly complex for clients and internal onboarding teams. This was resulting in protracted account opening times and a poor experience for clients and staff.

Dissatisfied with what was already on the market in the corporate KYC space, we created a bespoke solution to help Apex streamline their onboarding journey. With our Elixirr Digital team, comprised of expert designers, developers and consultants, we built and designed an entire platform end-to-end, incorporating market-leading solutions for key components of the journey, such as risk screening and ID verification.

The Approach

Our work started with concept formulation, undertaking a series of workshops with the Apex team to start bringing ideas to life. From these discussions, we tested and validated any innovative ideas that could solve existing pain points. This was a rapid process conducted over just three weeks. After multiple rounds of iterations and testing, we concluded the process with a high-fidelity prototype that outlined our vision for the digital client onboarding solution.

Working closely with the product owners from Apex’s operations, compliance and IT teams, we then constructed the digital onboarding solution in line with Apex’s functionality requirements. This included steps surrounding regulatory standards, complex business logic, vendor selection and technology architecture.

Finally, we moved into the build phase, working in sprints to deliver a minimal viable product (MVP) solution that incorporated market-leading solutions where available. With possible future business plans in mind, the digital onboarding solution was built with a high degree of configurability. This meant Apex would be able to maintain it as a living product that could respond to changing business needs.

For launch, we harnessed Elixirr Digital’s expertise in animation to develop a marketing video that generated interest in the digital onboarding solution. This video achieved significant engagement from existing and prospective clients and drove business growth within the first month of going live.

The Impact

With our team’s combined expertise, we were able to strategise, design, deliver and launch a bespoke solution for Apex in just 5 months. The onboarding platform is the first of its kind. It is now used by Apex’s banking clients and internal onboarding teams around the world.

The system harnesses first-class, innovative technology, creating an efficient and seamless journey. This has allowed for significantly faster onboarding (approximately 5 working days rather than several weeks or months). It has also contributed to a better client experience, heightened productivity and increased capacity for Apex.

The solution offers a point of differentiation for Apex, delivering an experience that no other service in the market offers. We made sure that all of Apex’s needs were satisfied and exceeded by building the solution end-to-end. As a result, the final product integrated the best possible technology and design.

Our work with Apex was recognised as the ‘Digital Transformation Initiative of the Year’ in the 2020 Drum Awards – highlighting the ingenuity and quality of the work delivered by our team.