More than 1 in 3 document processes in financial services (37 percent) are still driven by paper, according to an IDC Financial Insights Market Spotlight based on an IDC white paper sponsored by Ricoh.

Although business in general still relies on paper, the financial services industry is particularly behind the curve and stands to make especially significant gains by streamlining its information workflows, according to the recent IDC global study of 1,516 document-driven process owners and information workers.

Since financial services companies have worked hard to reduce reliance on paper in back-office processes, the biggest opportunities now lie in streamlining front-office processes such as marketing, customer service, lending and customer on-boarding. 

"Unlike back-office functions," the report states, "these processes directly impact the customer experience, and therefore have the dual benefit of increasing the firm's revenue as well as reducing costs."

For financial services in particular, optimising these customer-facing processes could increase revenue by 10.7 percent while also reducing overall operating costs by 10.5 percent, study respondents said.

"Although there are good reasons a lot of financial information is initially captured and then locked in paper, organisations can gain so many business benefits by unleashing it," said Yoshi Sasaki, General Manager, Business Services Center, Business Solutions Group, Ricoh. 

"With the right workflow in place, paper documents can be converted into digital information early in its lifecycle and make that information work for you. There's ample opportunity to cut costs, improves sales and delight the customer."

According to the IDC white paper, financial services firms are budgeting on average:

1. $US2.5 million per project to improve marketing/customer communications processes compared to $US1.4 million for other industries.
2. $US1.7 million per project to improve loan origination/sales processes compared with $US1.1 million per project for other industries
3. $US1.3 million per project to improve customer on-boarding processes compared to $US819,000 for other industries
4. $US2.1 million per project to improve customer service document processes compared with $US1 million per project in other industries.