Patent Application
20120095913
Aspects of the disclosure relate to managing risk. More specifically, aspects of the disclosure relate to managing global risk exposure of a financial institution by systematically processing payment exceptions to recorded and monitored treasury limits.
Many financial institutions offer treasury services to multinational clients that operate throughout various regions of the world. Because such global clients often establish their headquarters in one country while maintaining branches and/or subsidiaries in one or more other countries, financial organizations typically manage the products and services they provide to these clients through separate regional and/or country-specific platforms and processes. In the context of treasury services, financial institutions manage their risk exposure by establishing transaction, daylight, and overnight overdraft limits that are used for monitoring and decisioning payment releases for transactions involving overdrawn accounts. However, managing and processing payments decisioning for shared treasury limits of global clients requires extensive coordination between different branches or regional offices of a financial institution and a significant investment of time and resources. Furthermore, the manual nature of applying treasury limits when decisioning payments across multiple platforms offers very little flexibility to accommodate clients' global needs.
The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects herein that allow for managing global treasury risk exposure from a centralized treasury monitoring system. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure or to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.
One or more aspects described herein relates to systematically processing and decisioning release of payment exceptions to established treasury limits to eliminate inconsistent client experiences and increase overall efficiency in handling overdraft transactions. In at least one arrangement, a system and method of straight-through processing of low-risk overdraft transactions are provided to overcome the numerous inconsistencies that arise when such transactions are manually processed. By increasing efficiency associated with straight-through processing and approval of low-dollar, low-risk overdraft transactions, an organization (e.g., a financial institution) may improve its ability to mitigate global treasury risk exposure while also reducing operating expenses related to processing such transactions through other channels.
One or more other aspects described herein relate to providing enhanced tools and processes for manually decisioning and otherwise managing overdraft transactions. In one arrangement, graphical user interfaces (GUIs) allow transaction approvers (e.g., associates, employees, approvers, users, officials, etc.) of the organization to standardize workflow for manual processing and approval of overdraft transactions that cannot be entirely decisioned through automated straight-through processing. The GUIs may also provide users with reporting and decision override capabilities. The GUIs may be a component of an overdraft module that presents various client views of account information and enables users to manage and prioritize overdraft exceptions. Among other advantages, the overdraft module reduces the number of source systems and individual hand-offs required to research and decision payment exceptions, thereby creating additional cost-savings.
In one or more arrangements, the GUIs are workflow driven with consistently applied manual decisioning criteria to allow for processing of overdraft transactions across all deposit platforms. The GUIs provide users with the ability to manage overdraft transaction queues, prioritize and distribute work items, and track status and decisions of transaction being processed. Additionally, various aspects described herein relate to the GUIs being configured to facilitate routing of overdraft transactions to appropriate associates for decisioning and identify appropriate risk approvers and client teams as necessary.
One or more other aspects described herein relates to automatically applying a risk policy to an overdraft transaction based on an amount of the transaction (e.g., in U.S. Dollars) and a risk rating for daylight and ledger overdraft transactions to increase straight-through processing efficiency of the organization. In one arrangement, the overdraft management and processing system automatically and consistently applies overdraft limits according to procedures that may be customized based on standardized client and/or business need, regardless of the platform involved. The treasury limits may be applied at any level within the client relationship (e.g., family, primary, account, transaction, etc.).
Aspects of the disclosure may be provided in a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions to perform one or more of the process steps described herein.
These and other aspects of the disclosure are discussed in greater detail throughout this disclosure, including the accompanying drawings.
A more complete understanding of aspects of the present disclosure and the advantages thereof may be acquired by referring to the following description in consideration of the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numbers indicate like features, and wherein:
In the following description of various illustrative embodiments, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration various embodiments in which one or more aspects of the disclosure may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural and functional modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.
By way of general introduction, aspects of the disclosure relate to providing an organization (e.g., a financial institution) with a system and method for managing and processing overdraft exceptions to shared global treasury limits across multiple different platforms utilized by the organization. In at least one arrangement, an overdraft management and processing system decisions overdraft transactions of clients (e.g., customers, users, members, account-holders, clients, etc.) through a combination of straight-through and manual processes in a manner that eliminates inconsistent client experiences and decreases overall risk exposure to the organization. In at least some arrangements, the system described herein manages exceptions to clients' booked and recorded treasury limits such that a higher volume of straight-through processing of such exceptions allows for greater operating efficiency of the organization. For example, providing an organization with the ability to process a greater number of exceptions to treasury limits in an automated manner allows the organization to utilize its resources in more efficient ways, such as developing more strategic engineering of treasury limits, rather than focusing such resources on less-productive matters such as recording limits, reporting exceptions, etc.
Other aspects described herein provide for auto-decisioning of low-risk, low-amount transactions that meet certain qualifying criteria while also enabling authorized users to manually decision and otherwise manage overdraft transactions through various workflow-driven graphical user interfaces (GUIs) created and maintained by the system. The GUIs allow transaction approvers (e.g., associates, employees, approvers, users, officials, etc.) of the organization to standardize workflow for manual processing and approval of overdraft transactions that cannot be entirely decisioned by, or are exempt from, automated straight-through processing. The GUIs also provide users with reporting and decision override capabilities, allow users to manage overdraft transaction queues, prioritize and distribute work items, and track status and decisions of transaction being processed. Additionally, various aspects described herein relate to the GUIs being configured to facilitate routing of overdraft transactions to appropriate associates for decisioning and identify appropriate risk approvers and client teams as necessary. Standardizing workflow of manual processing by utilizing user-friendly GUIs that include numerous capabilities as will be described herein, ensures consistent application of an organization's risk policy and client-specific treasury limits across multiple different platforms.
In one or more arrangements, the automated decisioning may be based on global relationship account balances relevant to a given overdraft transaction. As described in greater detail herein, the auto-decisioning may be configurable such that certain overdraft transactions are excluded from being auto-decisioned based on select criteria (e.g., client, account type, risk rating, country, etc.). As used herein, client and/or account “relationships” may be defined at multiple levels, including family, primary, etc. For example, a “family” relationship between clients and/or accounts may include a parent company or corporation that has one or more subsidiary companies that may or may not also be parent companies themselves (e.g., in the arrangement where subsidiaries are organized in a hierarchal manner amongst one another). Any such subsidiary company may be considered a “primary” client and/or account when referring to an overdraft transaction to which the company is directly tied or related.
As will be described in greater detail below, the overdraft management and processing system of the present disclosure may auto-decision and auto-pay overdraft exceptions to established treasury limits consistently across all deposit platforms of the organization based on one or more criteria. In at least one arrangement, overdraft transactions having certain attributes may be subject to automated processing (e.g., straight-through processing) that outputs a decision based on risk rating and overdraft risk policy thresholds configurable by the organization and applied consistently across all relevant platforms. In at least one arrangement, “risk rating” refers to a calculated estimate for a given overdraft transaction (e.g., releasing requested funds on behalf of a client account with insufficient funds to fulfill the request) of the amount of loss (expected loss) that may be acceptably taken on the overdraft transaction. For example, the risk rating calculation may begin with a recorded risk rating for a particular client or account which is then adjusted for meaningful support (e.g., guarantor and/or collateral).
Input/Output (I/O) 109 may include a microphone, keypad, touch screen, camera, and/or stylus through which a user of device 101 may provide input, and may also include one or more of a speaker for providing audio output and a video display device for providing textual, audiovisual and/or graphical output. Other I/O devices through which a user and/or other device may provide input to device 101 also may be included. Software may be stored within memory 115 and/or storage to provide instructions to processor 103 for enabling server 101 to perform various functions. For example, memory 115 may store software used by the server 101, such as an operating system 117, application programs 119, and an associated database 121. Alternatively, some or all of server 101 computer executable instructions may be embodied in hardware or firmware (not shown). As described in detail below, the database 121 may provide centralized storage of characteristics associated with individuals, allowing interoperability between different elements of the organization residing at different physical locations.
Server 101 may operate in a networked environment 100 supporting connections to one or more remote computers, such as terminals 141 and 151. The terminals 141 and 151 may be personal computers or servers that include many or all of the elements described above relative to the server 101. The network connections depicted in
Additionally, an application program 119 used by the server 101 according to an illustrative embodiment of the disclosure may include computer executable instructions for invoking functionality related to providing access authorization for facilities and networks.
Computing device 101 and/or terminals 141 or 151 may also be mobile terminals including various other components, such as a battery, speaker, and antennas (not shown).
The disclosure is operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the disclosure include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.
The disclosure may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The disclosure may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.
Referring to
Computer network 203 may be any suitable computer network including the Internet, an intranet, a wide-area network (WAN), a local-area network (LAN), a wireless network, a digital subscriber line (DSL) network, a frame relay network, an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, a virtual private network (VPN), or any combination of any of the same. Communications links 202 and 205 may be any communications links suitable for communicating between workstations 201 and server 204, such as network links, dial-up links, wireless links, hard-wired links, etc.
The steps that follow in the Figures may be implemented by one or more of the components in
As shown in
In at least some arrangements, overdraft management and processing system 300 may also exchange information and data with components included within a data warehouse. Examples of such components included within a data warehouse may include a risk rating scorecard 325 and deposit account attributes 330. Overdraft management and processing system 300 may receive data related to risk rating 385 from risk rating scorecard 325 and receive account updates 390 from deposit account attributes 330. Additionally, in one or more arrangements, overdraft management and processing system 300 may receive currency exchange rates 395 data from a currency exchange database 335. Overdraft management and processing system 300 may also communicate with numerous other systems, databases, platforms, etc. through any of the various communication modes and channels described above and illustrated in
In step 405, a determination is made as to whether the work item is eligible for auto-decisioning based on one or more of a plurality of parameters that may be configured by the organization in numerous alternative ways to include/exclude work items from undergoing auto-decisioning processes. In at least one arrangement, the auto-decision eligibility determination made in step 405 may be based on one or more of the following parameters: transaction type (e.g., decisionable transaction, not bill payment, not ATM withdrawal, etc.), account/product type involved (e.g., not personal or consumer/retail), specialty assets group (SAG) flag set (e.g., flag indicator for clients deemed to be high-risk and reclassified for special handling outside of auto-decisioning), exception type or referral reason associated with the transaction, non-policy account at issue (e.g., account was manually identified in the system by a user), high risk indicator (e.g., manually set in the system by a user), family and/or primary GCI number, account number, hold placed on account, country of account, risk rating of account, branch, platform, number of days account is overdrawn, existing balance amount on account, and other such related parameters. It is to be understood that the parameters mentioned above are only a few examples of many different parameters, characteristics, and other such attributes that may alternatively or additionally be utilized by the system to render work items eligible and/or ineligible for auto-decisioning in step 405 of the process illustrated.
If in step 405 the work item is determined to be eligible for auto-decisioning based on any one or more of the parameters configured for use by the system, such as those described above, then the process moves to step 410 where the system determines whether the work item can be paid (e.g., fulfilled, satisfied, reconciled, etc.) based on one or more limits and/or risk policies relevant to the particular account involved or the related family of accounts in the account relationship. If it is determined that the work item cannot be paid by the available work limit or risk policy in step 410, then the process continues to step 415, which is further described below. If the work item is found to be capable of being paid by the available risk policy or limit, then in step 420 the decision is passed to the system of record for use with, for example, posting on a client accessible application.
If in step 405, a work item is determined to be ineligible for auto-decisioning based on any one or more of the parameters established by the organization and configured for use by the system, then the process proceeds to step 415 where it is determined whether the work item can be auto-escalated to an approver, such as an account manager, overdraft processing associate, or other authorized member of the organization. If it is found in step 415 that the work item can be auto-escalated, then in step 425 an electronic notification may be sent directly to the approver to notify him or her that a decision needs to be made on a pending overdraft transaction for a particular account. In at least some arrangements, the electronic notification sent to the approver in step 425 may indicate to the approver that there are one or more special attributes or characteristics about the pending overdraft transaction and/or the client account related to the pending transaction.
If at step 415 it is instead found that the work item cannot be auto-escalated to an approver, then the process goes to step 435 where the work item is sent to a queue for manual decisioning by an approver once any other work items already in the queue are processed. Once the work item is placed in the manual queue in step 435, then in step 440 the system determines whether an approver has rendered a decision on the work item. There are a variety of factors that may be considered by the system in determining whether the work item has been decisioned in step 440. For example, an approver who has received the work item from the manual queue may unequivocally approve or deny the work item (e.g., approve or deny the pending overdraft transaction), may partially approve or deny the work item such that additional review by another approver or member of the organization is required, may determine that there is not enough information available for the underlying account to render a hard decision on the work item, or perform numerous other actions that will be interpreted by the system in different ways depending on how the system is configured. In one or more arrangements, only when a work item is unconditionally and unequivocally approved or denied is the work item determined to be decisioned in 440.
Once a work item is determined to be decisioned in step 440, then in step 445 dual review of the work item is completed if certain criteria set by the organization are met. Once any dual review of the work item is completed then the decision gets passed to the system of record (SOR) for use in, for example, posting to client or account application.
According to other aspects of the disclosure, the overdraft management and processing system may provide workflow and approval capabilities similar to the overdrafts decisioning described above to enable the organization to manage, process/resolve and escalate aged overdrafts based on appropriate risk policy and within configurable business rules and limits. As used herein, an “aged overdraft” is a recurring overdraft meaning that it stands decisioned on day 1, is not yet funded, and is more than one day old. In some arrangements, aged overdrafts may be given different priorities, such as “approval required,” “review,” “low priority,” “excluded,” and/or other similar categorical label, and the system may provide for reporting/viewing information related to aged overdraft processing (e.g., by client team, market, division, LOB, etc.).
In at least one arrangement, the overdraft management and processing system may be configured to automatically apply appropriate overdraft item charges/fees in accordance with auto-decisioning business rules and applicable government and agency regulations. For example, an organization may issue a charge/fee for BOD transaction processing, in which case the system may be programmed or otherwise configured to automatically assess the charge/fee to an account whenever such a BOD transactions occurs. In some arrangements, the system may enable a user to apply or waive any fee/charge associated with an overdraft transaction within a GUI during manual decisioning of the transaction, as well as override any fees and/or charges for auto-decisioned items in accordance with various workflow rules. The functions and capabilities provided to users through the various GUIs of the overdraft management and processing system will be described in greater detail below.
The overdraft management and processing system may generate the GUIs shown in
According to other aspects of the disclosure, the overdraft management and processing system described herein may create and utilize the GUIs shown in
As shown in the example user interface of
Additionally, GUI 900 may have an “Accounts Assigned to Me Summary Information Section” 945, or a section similarly titled in alternative ways that allows a user to view various items of information about exception accounts that have been assigned to the user for decisioning/processing by the system. As shown, GUI 900 may provide a user with the ability to render a decision 965 on a particular pending overdraft transaction that has been assigned to the user for manual decisioning, and also provide the user with the ability to charge/waive a related fee 970. It is to be understood that numerous other capabilities and functions related to decisioning and viewing overdraft transactions/exceptions may also be built into GUI 900 in addition to or instead of those described above and illustrated in
Although specific examples of carrying out the aspects of the disclosure have been described, those skilled in the art will appreciate that there are numerous variations and permutations of the above-described systems and methods that are contained within the spirit and scope of the disclosure as set forth in the appended claims. Additionally, numerous other embodiments, modifications and variations within the scope and spirit of the appended claims will occur to persons of ordinary skill in the art from a review of this disclosure.
