Natwest strengthens CRM focus with Artesian Solutions

NatWest has deepened its focus on CRM, renewing its partnership with Artesian Solutions as the Banks’ core relationship intelligence and customer insight platform.

The announcement follows a competitive five-month tender process which assessed the latest artificial intelligence solutions against strict criteria aimed at contributing to the Bank’s mid-term growth plans and aligned to its key strategic initiatives.

Andy Gray, Managing Director for Corporate and Commercial Coverage at NatWest commented: “This new agreement with Artesian signals NatWest’s desire to use technology-enabled solutions to support our vision of being a customer-first organisation, offering consistent, high-quality experiences. 

“We exist to serve our customers and earn their trust by intuitively understanding their needs and working out clever solutions to their problems. Artesian is the engine that drives this vision, providing our Relationship Managers with the data and insight-driven ability to create compelling experiences throughout the customer journey.”

As part of the three-year agreement, NatWest will continue to utilise the technology of Artesian’s ENGAGE platform. The announcement builds on a longstanding relationship between the two companies, dating back to 2013.

Over the past 7 years, Artesian has continued to innovate, evolving into the platform of choice for the Bank’s 2,500 Relationship Managers to obtain company information and utilise real-time insights to attract, engage and nurture corporate customers.

In addition, the agreement also offers an exciting new framework for NatWest to evaluate the Artesian Risk and Compliance Hub (ARCH) across all divisional units. 

Launched in 2019, the addition of ARCH as part of NatWest’s frontline technology stack will enable Relationship Managers to carry out smart, bank compliant pre-screening on clients to quickly validate against the bank’s risk appetite while identifying any complexities that may arise during on-boarding. 

Carrying out some of the essential legal and regulatory KYC and due diligence checks at an earlier stage in the customer journey, by the person that owns the customer relationship, will result in faster issue resolution and an improved customer experience.

Andrew Yates, CEO at Artesian added: “I could not be more delighted to announce the continuation of our relationship with NatWest. In the seven years that we have been partners, Artesian has undergone a dramatic evolution, with many industry firsts under our belt including Buzzwords, a new dedicated banking user interface, ever more advanced AI and analytics, people data and workflow functionality. 

“Most significantly we introduced ARCH, a sophisticated configurable decision engine that continuously monitors real-time business risk and KYC data sources, but uniquely applies each bank’s own policies to that data. More recently, we made ARCH available for free to Artesian subscribers to support accredited CBILS banks and lenders to process the influx in loan applications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our constant drive for innovation and ability to respond nimbly to the needs of our customer is reflected in Artesian’s 95% customer retention rate. The long-term strength of our partnership with a leading British brand of the stature of NatWest stands as testament to the exceptional value we bring to frontline teams.”