Company profile

One of the Big Four Banks of India, ICICI Bank has subsidiaries, representative offices & branches spread across 16 countries and 4 continents.
It facilitates a wide range of transactions, such as:

  • Sale purchase transactions
  • Real estate debt transactions
  • Revenue/profit sharing arrangements
  • Mergers & acquisitions
  • Project financing & lending arrangements

The bank’s value proposition for the escrow market can be summarized as such:

  • It would be a dedicated product, with legal & operations teams to structure requirements accordingly.
  • It would have a quick turnaround for implementation.
  • Its documentation would be simplified to enhance convenience.
  • It would allow customers to gain viewing access on a single login.
  • Expertise in regulatory & compliance advisory

Challenges

There were many obstacles in the bank’s path to realizing their escrow market ambitions:

  • The manual handling of business operations took a toll on the bank’s efficiency.
  • The escrow management system was not automated, hence making the process complicated & time-consuming.
  • The lack of interfacing between critical processes & the bank’s core system led to further delays in processing.
  • The yearly/monthly reports created for the regulatory authority were collated very hectically due to the lack of automation, leading to further issues.
  • The escrow deal fee collections for transactions, payments, & other related processes were not collected on time.
  • The lack of automated systems and/or standing instructions for scenarios such as Borrower/Lender, Contracts, & TRAs were also a drawback.

Solution

Ascent ProMart© Escrow was the solution we provided the bank with to help them meet their escrow goals.
Some of its salient features are as follows:

  • All stages of the transaction process are covered by its end-to-end matrix.
  • It links customers, counterparties, and/or beneficiaries to relevant deals automatically.
  • Its configurable setup with standing instructions makes its automated recurring fee/payment deposits a lot more convenient.
  • It escrow operations cycle is entirely automated.
  • It comes with a user-friendly interface with all necessary dashboards & reports.

Results

Ascent ProMart© Escrow successfully helped the bank meet its ambitions.
The following are the ways in which it helped:

  • The service helped them achieve regulatory compliance.
  • It enabled an executive/top management view of the process through every step with increased visibility.
  • It provided a much higher degree of accuracy than legacy/manual approach, hence enhancing efficiency.
  • It enabled quick & accurate data generation at an enterprise level.
  • Real-time payments/deposits were enabled with the bank’s core.
  • Its automated messaging & email notifications allowed for the reviewing & approval of every escrow-related activity.