The Mauritius Commercial Bank Limited (MCB), a subsidiary and the mainstay of MCB Group Ltd is the longest-standing and leading banking institution in Mauritius. MCB expanded into non-banking financial services to diversify its markets, and it is now considered a benchmark player in this sector. MCB Capital Markets Ltd and speciality driven subsidiaries offer a comprehensive range of investor services. MCB also proposes leasing, factoring, and microfinance solutions.
MCB is also actively pursuing its market development drive based on its ‘Bank of Banks’ strategy, positioning itself as a regional focal point for handling trade finance, payments, and cards operations outsourcing, amongst others. MCB implemented SmartApprove, a web-responsive application (mobile, tablet, and PC screen) in its Corporate and Institutional Banking unit to drive its strategy.

Implementation Process

SmartApprove is a convenient and secure web responsive Application that allows authorised signatories to approve transactions directly on a tablet/smartphone/PC screen. The project began in November 2018. The MCB team finalised the Inception stage in December 2018. After that, MCB began various sprints, with the initial sprint or Sprint 0 ending in January 2019. Thereafter, following various development sprints, the bank deployed a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) where SmartApprove was launched in a pilot phase in October 2019. Based on a conclusive pilot phase, SmartApprove was officially launched in February 2020.

The project team comprised of a dedicated cross-functional and co-located squad of 12 members, with a mix of MCB employees coming from various segments and external consultants. The project team included: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Business Analyst, Tech Lead, QA Engineer, Software Engineer and Product Designers (UI/UX). The project team operated using an Agile framework, and it iteratively developed product features/functionalities and incorporated customer feedback with multiple quality releases.
Key features of the SmartApprove are:

• Authorisation of pending transactions
• Allowing for multiple approvals of several companies at one go
• Receiving important notifications about transactions
• Getting a consolidated summary of pending transactions
• Availing of a dashboard for recent transactions
• Having online access to the accounts of companies being dealt with

SmartApprove has further been enhanced to allow the approval of other domestic transfers to meet the customers’ expectations. The bank has also implemented a new feature (i.e. alert for new beneficiaries) in order to mitigate phishing risks.

In terms of modus-operandi, the journey started with a discovery phase, whereby the team had a thorough understanding of the ‘as-is’ process and spent time talking to customers to understand their pain points. During the inception phase, the team adopted a zero-based approach in designing the to-be process, performing tech feasibility and analysis, and determining the scope of the MVP release.

The team then operated in sprints of 2 weeks, prioritising and developing user stories while working on the User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) to deliver their first MVP after a few months. While designing the MVP, the following design principles were used:

• User-centred design – Assessment of pain points of the current customer as well as impact opportunities and co-creating solutions with customers to address the pain points
• Incorporating of gold-standard insights in the journey – Be unreasonably ambitious and learn from the best across geographies (e.g. visit banking platforms in China, US, Europe, etc.), design flow around ‘wow’ features that could significantly impact customer experience while automating processes for internal team members
• User-testing & continuous improvement – Frequent testing with real users to get their feedback on SmartApprove being developed
• Zero-based design of internal processes – Avoid being unnecessarily restrained by legacy approaches

The MCB SmartApprove Application was developed in the Digital Factory as part of MCB’s Digital Transformation Program (DTP). It is part and parcel of MCB’s strategy to become an agile organisation and fostering the next phases of its digital transformation. It serves as an incubator for embedding truly customer-centric operations across MCB by redefining end-to-end customer journeys. Operationally, the Digital Factory consists of 130 people with a broad mix of competencies across various fields, such as IT engineer, design/innovation lead, data architect/scientist/lead, etc. It encompasses dedicated cross-functional and co-located teams (of 10-12 members 2021 each, emanating from various segments of the MCB) working in agile squads.

Challenges faced
During the execution of the project, the team tackled the following challenges: (i) Integration; (ii) Performance optimisation; (iii) Removal of manual processes; and (iv) Testing automation.

i. Integration
One of the major challenges encountered was the integration of SmartApprove within the Core Banking and Internet Banking Systems of MCB, which required new web services to be put in place for the customer journey. Additionally, the team had to adapt itself to different ways of working with the SmartApprove solution being developed in an Agile mode of delivery, with well-defined sprints, while the web services were more on traditional project management mode

ii. Performance optimisation
The team had to deal with legacy systems that were not optimised for bulk transactions. Consequently, they had to work on Performance optimisation/mobile view. Since SmartApprove was going to be primarily accessed via mobile phones, MCB had to optimise API calls by reducing waiting time for customers and working with a smaller amount of data. MCB also worked on a mobile-first design to ensure that the screens worked smoothly and primarily for mobile phones. MCB faced a challenge concerning the amount of information to be provided on mobile phones to offer a fast and convenient service while not compromising the relevance and quality of information. MCB reviewed its codes for shorter response time with optimised database queries based on customer interviews.

iii. Removal of manual processes
MCB simplified its international funds’ transfers processes, which were essentially non-STP, to embed automation and reduce the intervention of its back-office staff. MCB undertook an in-depth review of its Internet Banking interface. MCB also replaced open text instructions with predefined selections, notably with regards to the input of SWIFT code; customers can now search and select from a list of SWIFT codes instead of typing to eliminate the possibility of inputting an incorrect code.
MCB also bridged the interface with a web service from the treasury system to allow customers to select available negotiated currency rate on the customer’s chosen currency. These process improvements brought STP to around 90% for international funds transfers.

iv. Testing automation
The team also faced a challenge concerning testing the efficiency and effectiveness of the newly implemented processes. Considering the massive amount of testing to be effected – for instance, up to 1,600 scenarios had to be tested for International Funds Transfers – and the time constraints, MCB had to automate the scenarios with scripts to create and post transactions on the Core Banking system and make use of tools like Selenium to automate the creation of transactions for better accuracy and speed of execution.

Benefits Achieved
Among the key benefits achieved from SmartApprove:

• Corporates can approve transactions faster and at their convenience with the SmartApprove. It is expected to become the preferred mode of approval for corporate signatories as MCB goes live with a full-fledged marketing campaign. To date, MCB has recorded over 600 registered users with more than 16,400 transactions effected through SmartApprove
• With the implementation of STP for foreign currency transfers, nearly all payment requests that are received on the bank’s Internet Banking platform are automatically executed, without the need for human intervention by the payments and operations team. MCB is providing secure processes and ensuring that transactions can be made anywhere, anytime, and customers do not have to wait for three to four days to complete transactions.
• Alongside enhancing online functionalities and making them more user-friendly, this new configuration provides quick access and usability on the back of key features, including access to favourite transfers, transfers to existing/new beneficiaries.
• Mitigation of phishing risks through the implementation of the “Alert for new beneficiary” The SmartApprove solution has also benefitted MCB internally, particularly during the lockdown period whereby:
  • Over 18,900 transactions were processed without any manual intervention from the processing team
  • Treasury sales staff members were not solicited to confirm deal tickets as these were directly available on the platform
  • Treasury money market staff members had access to online queries to have visibility on the bank’s NOSTROS

The intuitive design of SmartApprove also contributed to offering a better quality of use. Additionally, SmartApprove is well equipped on the security front, as it is secured by SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and requires a 2-factor authentication for transactions. Signatory users benefit from notifications via SMS informing them that there are transactions initiated and ready to be authorised and that they can access SmartApprove for onward authorisation. Moreover, SmartApprove offers added security features, such as a notification pop-up on a transaction whenever the beneficiary to whom the instruction is being addressed is a new one, with the technical validation being done on the beneficiary account number or IBAN within 18 months.
The launch of SmartApprove proved to be highly beneficial for the bank. With the application together with process automation, around 90% of foreign currency transfers are now processed real-time and 24*7 STP vs 100% manual processing previously. The application also offers the possibility to do multiple approvals for several companies at one go and to receive important notifications about transactions.

Key Facts

• Bank: Mauritius Commercial Bank Limited
• Headquarters: Republic of Mauritius
• Supplier: Mauritius Commercial Bank Limited
• Solution: SmartApprove v 3.0
• Timeline: November 2018 to February 2020