Digital signatures increase revenue for brokerage firms

We’ve all heard the environmental benefits of "going green," but keeping our planet healthy isn't the only reason for brokerage firms to move to electronic documentation. There are significant benefits not just for your firm, but also for your customers.

Did you know firms that use automated electronic processes see lower acquisition costs, increased sales and ongoing cost savings? And don’t take our word for it, a Forrester study proves it. 

But firms need a way to get signatures on important electronic documents. Digital signatures take care of that problem (to read more about the legality of digital signatures, click here). Here are just some of the benefits of adopting digital signatures:

Increased Revenue

• Increased Sales through Immediate Execution: The biggest opportunity for revenue growth is the ability to let customers execute transactions at the moment they decide to buy. Customers expect to be able to purchase a product at the moment they decide they want it. Digital signatures let brokerage firms offer secure transactions for high-value products and services.
• Additional Sales through Increased Reach: Brokerage firms that do business online aren’t limited by a customer’s physical location. This is critical for maintaining customers over time if a customer moves away from the region you service.
• Growth through Enhanced Customer Service: Customers expect to be able to have access to important documents 24/7. With digital signatures, your customers can have convenient, permanent access to their important documents. This enhances a customer’s experience and helps solidify loyalty.

Reduced Cost

The average cost to open an account manually is $328, but the same process only costs $143 online. The cost isn’t just the paper, ink and postage of printing paper documents, it’s also the cost of processing the document. Manual processing and execution can take weeks or months. Some of the costs of manual processing include:

• Stuffing and mailing documents
• Filing and processing responses
• Tracking/follow-up on open orders/NIGOs
• QA of documents for accurate completion/compliance
• Customer contact and recovery of lost documents
• Data entry/re-entry
• Copying, imaging and filing
• Distribution of copies
• Storage/retrieval of paper copies

Using electronic processing, one customer reduced the average time to establish and fund an IRA rollover from 30 days to less than 5 days.

Additional Benefits

Using digital signatures won’t just affect your bottom line. There are other important benefits too.

• Reduction in Liability/Legal Costs: Digital signatures offer a greater level of risk mitigation than the manual processes that they replace. Digitally signed document are legally compliant, and if they are tampered with, the document will show the changes in its detailed audit log.
• Compliance: Missing, misfiled or incomplete documentation can result in non-compliance fines or penalties. Using automated, fully electronic processes reduces this risk and also saves time and money for periodic audits.

Want to learn more about the legality of digital signatures? Download your free digital copy of our white paper "6 Questions to find out if a Digital Signature is Legal."