CitiConnect_API_Case_Study_Book

34 Enhancing Operational Efficiency | API Playbook Enabling Beneficiary Account Validation through ‘Penny Testing’ The Company One of the world’s largest asset management companies that provides mutual fund investment options for institutional, retail, and high-net-worth investors. As part of the Company’s onboarding process, its customers (‘Investors’) were required to submit physical copies of cancelled cheques to verify their bank account details. Such validation is part of their onboarding/ KYC process. The process involved submission of physically signed cheque copies to the Company which would manually capture and maintain the details such as bank account number, branch name, address and IFSC Code of the account held by Investors with respective Banks. The Company then securely stores these cancelled cheques along with other onboarding documents. The process is highly manual and has high rejection turn-around for completion of onboarding process given involvement of physical cancelled cheques. The Challenge • Digital and Automated Bank Account Verification during the customer onboarding process pre-empting subsequent payment rejections • Elimination of Manual Processes at the Company as cancelled cheques are no longer required from Customers • Improved Customer Onboarding time given digital A/C validation leading to better customer experience The Benefits • Account Validation Services can be used by all corporates for the purpose of digital KYC as part of their onboarding processes • Simplified Vendor Onboarding Process facilitated by IMPS (Faster Payments) which also provides enriched data of Actual Beneficiary Name (as held in the Beneficiary Bank) Potential Uses The Solution To ensure the robust and faster onboarding process, the Company has integrated its processes with Citi where it initiates a ‘penny transaction’ using IMPS (Faster Payments) through CitiConnect ® for API. Citi sends the payment instruction to clearing network in real-time and returns the actual Beneficiary Name (as held with Beneficiary Bank) to Company through Transaction Status Inquiry API. Authentication of Client Instruction Payment initiation via IMPS (Faster Payments) Payment Status Inquiry API to retrieve the Actual Bene Name The solution is powered by the following CitiConnect APIs: STEP 1 Customers (’Investors’) submit their bank account details along with onboarding forms to Company for the KYC process STEP 2 Company’s personnel data-enters required details including bank information in their ERP STEP 3 The Company initiates a “penny value payment” using IMPS (Faster Payment) via CitiConnect ® for API STEP 4 Citi returns the Account status and the actual Beneficiary Name (as held with Beneficiary Bank) to Company through Transaction Status Inquiry API