Alpha Bank: End-to-end processes enable holistic business transformation

Headquartered in Athens, Greece, the Alpha Bank Group was founded in 1879 by Ioannis F. Kostopoulos and is today one of the largest Greek financial groups, with presence in Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Luxembourg and the UK, providing a wide range of financial products and services. With a new corporate purpose - to enable progress in life and business for a better tomorrow - Alpha Bank is leading the transition of the Greek economy to a sustainable and resilient growth model, while contributing to the promotion of an equitable and inclusive society.

Over its 140 years of activity, Alpha Bank has continually blazed the trail towards modernizing Greek banking, emphasizing on innovation and trusted customer relationships.  And it’s exactly the same pioneering spirit that is at the heart of the bank’s current transformation plan, which focuses on the digitalization of core processes to enhance both the employee experience and customer engagement. 

“We knew the starting point was better process documentation,” says Avgoustina Prapa, Business Process Modeling Team Leader at Alpha Bank. “We had no standardized and visual approach to mapping processes, with limitations in ensuring a coherent view of processes across the organization.”

The lack of a central repository made it difficult to identify inefficiencies. “It was very difficult to compare processes,” says Theofanis Giotas, the bank’s Business Process Modeling Specialist.

Furthermore, branches were spending considerable time on administrative tasks, meaning they had less time to engage with customers on new products or services. Bottlenecks were a common issue, especially in getting paperwork authorized. “When a legal entity first uses a service with the bank,” Avgoustina Prapa explains “the branch needs to (a) send certain customer documents to the legal division in order to issue the legalization document and (b) to update the relevant core banking systems. The above tasks require much time and specialized knowledge to ensure accuracy and efficiency.”

The bank realized it needed to systematize process mapping and create a single point of truth for everyone to see, understand, and act on. With a focus on design, optimization and (GRC) Governance, Risk and Compliance, it needed a unified solution with multiple capabilities that can contribute to the objectives set in its ambitious transformation plan.

Working with local BPM partner Spirit Hellas, Alpha Bank deployed ARIS Business Process Analysis to model its core and support processes. To provide the bank’s employees with easy access to the different processes, ARIS viewing capabilities were installed.

“Spirit Hellas gave us excellent technical and business support,” says Avgoustina Prapa. “We have a long relationship with them, and their knowledge of ARIS made the installation smooth and simple.” 

Alpha Bank has used ARIS to document around 70% of its internal procedures (more than 3,000 procedures) used by different business functions, such as the assessment process carried out by the credit department, or the systems administration process carried out by the back-office team.

But even more exciting is that many cross-functional, end-to-end processes are also being modeled: “We’ve put together more than 70 processes that are complex in nature,” says Theofanis Giotas. “For example, the process for mortgages combines multiple internal procedures, including assembling branch documents, evaluating credit risk, opening a loan account, and managing legal requirements.”

All processes and procedures can be consulted by authorized employees in the branches and the central unit, as well as by other approved users. On average, around 1,500 user sessions are registered every month.

Since adopting ARIS, we have truly seen a change of culture at Alpha Bank. “We’ve become more mature in terms of processes, and that’s key to banking success these days,” explains Avgoustina Prapa. “Through training, our people now understand the benefits of managing processes and why it’s important to map them clearly and coherently.” 

With ARIS established as a unique point of process accountability, Alpha Bank has laid the foundations to drive a wide range of operational improvements: 

• New efficiencies are continually created by sparing duplication of effort and saving resources and time. For wholesale and investment products, for example, the bank has been able to identify which processes can be transferred from the branches to the central unit. This has freed up the time of branch employees to engage with customers.
• Operational transparency has made collaboration smoother. “By consulting the relevant process, we now know who should be doing what at any given moment,”says Avgoustina Prapa. “That transparency makes handovers faster, and we’re already seeing the impact in areas like mortgage loans.” says Theofanis Giotas.
• Digitalization has been accelerated. Many documents that were previously kept in branches as hard copies are now digitized and stored in the core banking systems. “ARIS helps us prioritize the areas where we can most benefit from digital transformation,” explains Theofanis Giotas. “For example, if we want to consult fiscal documents, we can now do it rapidly and securely online.”
• Risk mitigation is another key focus for Alpha Bank where ARIS has proved invaluable. “We’ve used the platform to document control points within processes in a visual way,” says Avgoustina Prapa. “So, everyone can easily identify if a document needs to be signed or approval must be granted before continuing the process.” This is expected to facilitate the bank’s Risk and Control Self-Assessment (RCSA) and regulatory audits performed internally or by external Regulators.

Looking ahead, Alpha Bank plans to continue harnessing ARIS to map, model, and optimize its end-to-end processes. “We’ve seen the positive impact it’s had on loans and mortgages,” says Theofanis Giotas, “and we want to explore further optimization projects and keep improving auditing initiatives.”

Furthermore, the Business Process Management team is working with the bank’s automation team to explore opportunities using Robotic Process Automation, which would enable the bank to automate repetitive manual tasks for a surge in productivity.

“By transforming our approach to processes, we’ve made our business transformation ambitions a reality,” says Avgoustina Prapa, “and we’re excited to see what comes next.”