What are businesses looking for from RDC solutions? It depends on who you ask.
For example, mobile RDC, which has made significant headway with consumers and some large enterprises, isn’t always a sure bet for small businesses. “There are a significant number of small businesses, regardless of size, that aren’t all that interested in the attributes of business mobile RDC solutions,” explained Bob Meara, a Senior Analyst at Celent who tracks RDC trends. “Existing solutions [i.e.: modified consumer mRDC] are tolerable, especially if they’re free.”
Also, many smaller firms prefer desktop banking solutions over mobile. Malauzai Software, which tracks usage of its digital applications among client financial institutions’ customers, has found an overwhelming preference among smaller businesses for PCs. Fewer than 10% of active business banking logins are made via smartphones. “[A]ll other is desktop,” said Robb Gaynor, Malauzai’s Chief Product Officer.
Many larger businesses, on the other hand, may be interested in mobile RDC, but not as a standalone solution. “Larger companies want solutions that integrate desktop and mobile,” said Meara.
Of equal, if not greater importance is integration with other payment channels as well as backend corporate systems. “Back end posting is critical, but it can be time-consuming and error-prone,” said Zac Robinson, Director of Sales and Marketing at Financial Transmission Network Inc. (FTNI). “There are technologies that can streamline and automate that.”
FTNI’s ETran Integrated Receivables leverages these technologies to enable businesses to accept, process and post remittance transactions regardless of payment method (cash, card, check, ACH) or channel (online, mobile, in person, by mail) all on one cloud-based platform. Earlier this month the Omaha-based company announced Lincoln Investment Planning, a full-service broker-dealer with over $30 billion in assets, was implementing the platform to streamline the processing of payments received at corporate and branch offices. Chris Kelm, Vice President of Operations at Lincoln, described being able to consolidate the processing and posting of disparate payment types as “a big benefit to Lincoln and our clients. As we continue to evolve our operations surrounding payment processing, the ability to achieve straight-through processing on a single platform is a truly exciting evolution for us,” Kelm said.
So what should businesses be looking for in
RDC solutions?
