LONG BEACH, CA – The Halifax/Bank of Scotland (HBOS) Group, just honored by widely read financial publication The Banker as “U.K. Bank of the Year”, has dramatically upgraded its ability to serve global customers with an internet-based enterprise paperless office solution from Laserfiche Document Imaging.

Bank of Scotland International, which is part of the HBOS Group, have offices on the Isle of Man and Jersey, separated by 500 miles, share nearly one million customer documents. With a few keystrokes, 225 employees on the islands can instantly access customer information, eliminating the old system of faxing queries between the islands.

Customers on six continents rely on the Bank of Scotland International, for a wide variety of financial services including wealth protection, estate planning, international movement of funds and access to wide investment opportunities.

Given the level of customer enquiries received daily and the number of new accounts Laserfiche was needed to help reduce workers’ reliance on paper and handle customer service faster and more efficiently.

“As we explored various document imaging systems, we knew our choice had to be cost-effective,” said Ranald Caldwell, Bank of Scotland International’s Director and Head of Operations. “Laserfiche, will reduce our processing costs, improve disaster recovery and clearly enhance customer service. We forecast a full project payback within two years.”

Viking Office Systems Ltd. on the Isle of Man provided not only the Laserfiche solution, but also extensive training and implementation assistance. Viking officials recently accompanied Caldwell to Laserfiche corporate headquarters in Long Beach, CA for advanced product training and strategic planning sessions.

“We set up a simple seven-step process to help the Bank of Scotland make the transition from paper-reliant to paper-free,” said Harvey Burgess of Viking. “Laserfiche has a solid reputation as an easy-to-use product. Our specially-designed plan gave employees time to get comfortable with the new software, but we also made sure things moved along efficiently to keep the Bank of Scotland on schedule with their proposed return on investment.”

With back office processes mainly on the Isle of Man and front office in Jersey it is vital that both islands can view the common data, which is being done by way of our Web Access product.

“Web Access really makes our out-sourcing a lot easier,” Caldwell said. Now, all they have to do is log on to Web Access, and search for whatever information the customer is looking for. Our call centers provide service without even talking to us.”

Laserfiche is a non-proprietary; open-ended solution using industry standard ASCII text and TIF images to assure Bank of Scotland data will remain accessible.

Like a sturdy foundation, Laserfiche can be expanded to include more benefits, as well. Once one million documents are back-scanned into the system, the Bank of Scotland International will aggressively implement an automated capture tool, Quick Fields, as well as a Workflow module that will instantly route digital paperwork to employees through out the day, eliminating the mail cart.

“Bank of Scotland International really shows what we can do on an enterprise level,” said Gonzalo Bonifaz, Laserfiche international sales manager. “And we’re not done yet, either. After installing Quick Fields and Work Flow, the bank will explore our new Records Management edition. An expansion to the city of Hong Kong is also in the pipeline for next year. We are markedly improving the services of one of the world’s biggest, most trusted banks, just as we have for the Bank of China and others around the world.”

Laserfiche (www.Laserfiche.com) is a division of Compulink Management Center, Inc. with world headquarters in Long Beach, CA. Since 1987, Laserfiche Document Imaging software has been helping manage documents in over 20,000 government agencies, schools, law offices, non-profit organizations, financial services companies and other businesses worldwide.

Posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2003 at 2:09 pm under Press Releases. You can comment on this article. trackback from your own site.