Financial companies going paperless

May 3, 2013

We wrote last week about Wells Fargo's new "mini-branches," branches that are about a third of the size of a typical branch, and use work stations instead of offices. Staff members at the branch use tablets and smartphones to streamline all the processes.

But Wells Fargo isn't the only financial institution to use a paperless approach to improving and modernizing its business. Quicken Loans, a mortgage provider, has no branches, and instead operates completely online. It hasn't always been this way – the business began moving to a paperless and all-digital style in 1998, closing 30 branches and operating out of its main office in Detroit. 

This approach was one of many that helped the business succeed, even as the housing market collapsed. 

Bill Emerson, the CEO, explained that since the whole process is online, multiple employees can look at the data at one time. Consequently, the process of approving a mortgage is much quicker. 

"By going all-online, Quicken could digitally track every step – from taking the initial call from a potential customer to ordering closing documents," an article in USA Today said. "Quicken shrunk the mortgage approval time down to about 30 days from three to six months – a major selling point for marketing and advertising." 

This process of going all digital, along with aggressive sales techniques and avoidance of many of the mortgages that caused the housing crisis, have helped it prosper in the past few years. For other financial companies struggling to stay afloat in the recovering industry, going digital, with the help of a document scanning service, can help companies keep better track of records, communicate with employees and customers, and make the overall process more efficient.

Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company with over 53 years of experience as a data processing service provider.  We provide business with outsourcing solutions for document scanning services, data entry services and mailing/lettershop services.  As a SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.