Case studies_Banking

Chapter 1. Select Case
Studies – Banking &
Financial Services

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reserved. KPMG and the KPMG logo are registered trademarks of KPMG International.
Chapter 1. Select Case Studies
Bank of America- One of the first organizations to successfully implement Lean Six Sigma in the service industry
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Measured
Continuous
Improvement
Case Study
Business Context:
•Bank of America took its first tentative steps in process improvement
several years ago, as business leaders within the company realized
inefficient, error prone processes were costing the company money and
generating customer dissatisfaction. In response, the then-new Bank of
America chairman and CEO Kenneth D. Lewis announced a major strategic
shift for the company, from growth through acquisition and merger to
organic growth—acquiring, retaining and deepening profitable customer
relationships.
List of someprojects:
• Increased customer delight with problem resolution.
• More precise control over payments to suppliers.
• Increased productivity of new hires via training.
• Elimination of significant travel expenses.
• Enhancement of enterprise e-mail governance to improve productivity.
• Reduction of credit risk assessment considered biased.
• Elimination of significant numbers of electronic information subscriptions.
• Increased associate retention in key areas.
• Increased collections by reducing abandoned inbound calls.
• Improved ability to detect and prevent fraud at banking centers.
Challenges Observed:
Voice of the customer data identified the key business processes—such as
deposits and payments—that were linchpins in the overall customer
experience at Bank of America. Process engineering teams were established
to work across business lines to facilitate improvements that would cause
maximum impact on customer delight. One of the main priorities was to give
customers world-class reliability in automated and electronic channels: ATMs,
telephone banking and online banking.

Bank of America- One of the first organizations to successfully implement Lean Six Sigma in the service industry
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Measured
Continuous
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Case Study
Method Used:
Lean Six Sigma tools were soon being applied across the entire Bank of
America value chain, from sales through fulfillment to service. Businesses
and engineering teams were collaborating on projects to eliminate variation
and errors in key processes.
Benefits observed:
•In all, Six Sigma and the other quality tools that have become part of Bank
of America’s culture have created benefits of more than $2 billion.
•Best of all, customer delight has increased by 25% across the company,
with some operational areas of the company showing even greater gains.
The results that Bank of America was achieving through Six Sigma were
impressive.
• Missing items on customer statements were reduced by 70%
• Through a series of focused projects, defects in electronic channels
(ATMs, online banking, etc.) decreased by 88%
• One project on mortgage applications reduced average cycle time by 15
days
• Non-credit losses, including fraud, were driven down by 28% on a per-
account basis, whereas the number of accounts increased by more
than a million in 2003 alone
• Same-day payments have been improved by 22%
• Deposit processing has been improved by 35%
• Reduced cycle times in several businesses by 50%
Six Sigma was generating the same magnitude of benefits at a bank that
have been seen in manufacturing organizations.

Applicable DMAIC Methodology for Banking is as per below
After its’ development in 1980’s Six Sigma was largely employed by the manufacturing sector to reduce usual defects. However, with the evolution of new methods and tools Six Sigma is also being employed in service
sector, specifically in banking sector. The Six Sigma strategy mostly employed in banking sector is DMAIC. The detailed discussion of DMAIC elements is as follow.
Define
The ‘define’ is the first phase of Six Sigma process. During this phase Six Sigma teams, managers and other staff members co-ordinately define the aims and limits of specific banking processes. Clients’ satisfaction is
considered as central aim of Six Sigma in banking industry, therefore in this stage all those processes are defined which include consumers’ connections and directly or indirectly influence clients’ satisfaction. Purchasing
new banking products and services like saving certificates, requesting changes in existing accounts, opening new accounts and requesting ATM cards are the examples of such processes.
Measure
The second phase involves implementation of different quantitative methods and tools to gather required statistical information. The Six Sigma teams after collecting necessary data with the cooperation of senior managers
use this data to measure the effect of different banking practices and processes on clients’ satisfaction. The effect of various banking practices and processes varies from each other. The effective measurement of influence
of different practices and processes assist the banks to improve the quality of specific measured practices and processes. It is not necessary that every practice or process will have financial impacts. However, non-financial
impact is also important. In today’s competitive environment time is the most scare resource; therefore saving customers’ time is regarded critical for clients’ satisfaction. The banks’ employing Six Sigma observes and
measure average time taken in dealing with an individual customer or for a specific transaction.
Analyse
During this stage of Six Sigma implementation analysis of the gathered data is conducted according to the measures used and prior defined standards with the purpose of highlighting the practices and processes which
could be better developed at a lower cost. The Analyse phase involves various aspects of banking processes which can put certain impacts on clients’ satisfaction. The examples of such processes can be a cheque
presentation and cash receiving time, a bill collection time, a demand draft request and preparation time. Such processes are analysed regarding how much time they take and what are their impacts on business
performance and service quality.
Improve
During this stage of DMAIC process, the managers and professionals engaged in Six Sigma implementation employ several actions to improve practices and process which results different sort of problems in daily banking
operations. The corrective actions and measures taken are based on data collected during measure phase and analysed during Analyse phase. The professionals and managers engaged in Six Sigma implementation can
use other advanced statistical and non-statistical tools to investigate the impacts of quality enhancement measures taken on different banking practices and processes.
Control
During ‘control’ stage of DMAIC process, specified controlling system are employed in banking operations to measure the influence of actions taken for quality enhancement. In case, the banking practices and processes
are not improved as per defined Six Sigma levels, even after, the actions taken. The DMAIC process will again start from ‘define’ stage. On the other hand, if the problem causing ineffective Six Sigma performance is of a
minor nature, in that case corrective actions are employed and the complete process is not repeated.There could be areas or processes that may have needed customer contact too many times, leading to customer
dissatisfaction.
Six Sigma tools and techniques can help eliminate overlapping processes - and in turn, prove easier and beneficial to the customer. Faster processing and reduced cycle times can help banks to provide best services to
their customers, which in turn means good profits.

Common Six Sigma projects identified in Finance and Banking
Improving customer feedback, satisfaction and response processes
Reducing documentation errors & improving accuracy
Improving the reconciliation processes
Reducing response delays
Reducing or eliminating invoicing errors
Eliminating the possibility of erroneous data entry
Reducing audit non conformities
Reducing turnaround time (TAT) for various processes
Reduction of waiting & service time
Reduce electronic financial transaction costs
Reducing complaints by (First Time Resolution) for complaints/ queries
Enhancing (internal or external) customer satisfaction
Improved customer experience for Net Banking, Mobile Banking & Phone Banking
To level off the differences between financial and non-financial data annual reports
Eliminating processing delays
Improve profitability and reduce costs
Queue management at teller counters
Monitor and analyze performance
Risk Management and Fraud Assessment
In the Asset side
1. Reducing the cycle time to Process a Loan Application (both Mortgage & Personal loans).
2. Improving the Customer Information gathering processes.
3. Improving the Credit Evaluation Process
4. Improving Productivity of loan processing agents
5. Improving Shareholder’s Value
6. Return on bank assets

Common Six Sigma projects identified in Finance and Banking
Account Opening
1. Reducing the time to open an account
2. Reducing errors in account opening process.
3. Reducing rework in processing customer applications
Other Projects in Retail Banking
1. Reducing the Credit Card Delivery time.
2. Reducing Bank Statements Processing & Delivery time.
3. Reducing the errors in money transfer
4. Improving accuracy, timeliness and completeness of customer communication.
5. Developing new products (timeliness, business potential)
6. Improving Market Share of existing banking products.
7. Improving the Branch Banking Processes
8. FD mobilization

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8
Chapter 2. About KPMG
Lean Six Sigma solves a commercial bank's growth problem (credit issues)
Leading
Commercial
Bank
Growth problems in the
form of credit
processing
Client situation
• As the residential property market slowed, local banks shifted their focus to commercial banking.
• However, credit issues were a major constraint to growth of the business.
• Credit issues included credit processes, policies, capabilities and culture.
• Problems existed throughout the organization, from sales force and front line credit approvals team to central group
credit.
• Lean Six Sigma principles were applied to improve the performance and efficiency of credit process.
Action Implementations
• Lean Six Sigma principles were applied to improve the performance and efficiency of credit process.
• Rule-based credit policies were recommended through Lean Six Sigma principles, with faster approval process to
enable growth, reduce processing time and increase accuracy.
Benefits to client
• 30% reduction in time required to approve credit applications (with fast track deals)
• 10-15% reduction of deals requiring approval by central credit head, with most smaller applications being approved
regionally
 25% reductions in applications requiring rework

9
Lean Six Sigma solves a commercial bank's growth problem (credit issues)
Leading
Commercial
Bank
Growth problems in the
form of credit
processing

10Cost Excellence for DB Schenker© 2013 KPMG, an Indian Registered Partnership and a member firm of the KPMG network of
DifferentiatorsReferencesOutcomes Promised CollaborationCapabilities & Team Profiles
CaseStudyontheLean SixSigmaManagement forInformationTechnology ServiceManagement ProjectofGCommercialBank
Client Challenge
• The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the key success factors of Information Technology service management
(ITSM), of G bank were analyzed and need for improvement was realized.
• Furthermore, a process optimization scheme was designed for the production changes of G bank’s ITSM with the Lean Six Sigma
management theory.
Key Activities
The production changes of G bank’s ITSM by means of DMAIC method was carried out in order to achieve these four goals:
• Firstly, optimizing the process and improving the internal work efficiency also;
• Secondly, reducing the variation and the error rate and also improving the system availability;
• Thirdly, strengthen the business interaction in order that the IT value could be reflected preferably; and
• Cutting the over-time is to improve employee satisfaction.
As part of the project, we were able to:
• Set a goal that the rates of non-standard should be dropped to 8% or below;
• Measure the alterations of G bank, including three key stages: before the implementation, in the implementation and after the
implementation;
• Take the optimization measures for the management before alteration, during the alteration and after it;
• Identify needs to improve the management process of implementation.
Outcomes
Benefits to G Commercial Bank include:
• the average examination and approval time of alteration was brought down from 50 minutes to 28 minutes;
• the rates of non-standard dropped to 9.6%;
• Long-term process ability has been set up;
• The operation control plan has been up- dated and implemented; and
• Process has returned to process owner for maintenance.
Area ofAssistance
Lean management program
setup:
• Process improvement
• Information Technology Service
Management Project

11
Engagement Credentials
Lean Six Sigma at Citibank
Citibank, a
Citigroup
company
Customer Satisfaction
and Process
Improvement in
Commercial Banking
Client situation
 Citibank, a Citigroup company, has set a goal to be the premier international financial company in the next millennium.
 To achieve this clearly ambitious goal, the global giant had to implement quality initiatives that satisfied customers quickly and
flawlessly at every interaction anywhere in the world.
 Citibank undertook the Six Sigma challenge to improve total customer satisfaction by investigating well-known manufacturing
management theories and attempted to apply them to their own nonmanufacturing environment.
 Methodologies like cycle time reduction (CTR), coupled with the detection of defects using Six Sigma methods and
implemented globally by using empowered teams, have resulted in significant improvements in process timelines, cash
management and customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Benefits to client
• Reduced internal call backs by 80 percent, external call backs by 85 percent and the credit process time by 50 percent.
 Improved all steps' cycle times from when a customer places an order to product delivery and also reduced the credit decision
cycle by 67 percent, from three days to one day.
 Used CFPM methods to improve the accuracy and timeliness of statements and achieved 100-percent accuracy within a four-
month period. It also reduced the cycle time of processing statements from 28 days to 15 days.

12
Lean Six Sigma at BNP Paribas helped discover more than 100 opportunities leading to quality improvement
BNP Paribas
Strategy for quality
improvement in
corporate and
investment banking
services
Client situation
 BNP Paribas is one of France’s largest companies. Headquartered in Paris, the bank has operations in 84 countries and more
than 200,000 employees across Europe, North American and Asia.
 BNP Paribas provides retail banking in France, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg investment solutions as well as corporate and
investment banking services.
 BNP Paribas’ senior management sought significant improvement in the efficiency of the bank’s quarterly reporting cycle. The
consistency of reporting processes was uneven, and the actual costs were difficult to determine.
• Process improvement and automation could streamline routine tasks, thereby giving senior management additional time
for higher-level analysis, insight and communication.
• After eight weeks, more than 100 projects were identified to streamline BNP Paribas’ quarterly management reporting
cycle.
Benefits to client
• The projects—many of which cross departmental boundaries and business units—are expected to save up to $2 million
annually through enhanced productivity and improved workforce utilization.

13
Lean Six Sigma at an International Bank in Germany to help grow its Car Loan Business
International
Bank in Germany
Lean Six Sigma
strategy applied to
improve Car Loan
Business
Client situation
 An international bank with 50 branches in Germany and approximately 300 employees decided in 2003 to adopt Lean Six
Sigma in all its business units in Europe.
 It then set out to use Six Sigma to implement one of its priority business strategies – significantly grow its car loan business in
the next two years.
 The bank’s goal was to increase car loans by 100 percent in the first year, and by another 70 percent in the second year.
• The final project definition for one of the Black Belt projects had a narrow scope including only one sub-process –
communication with car dealers.
• As part of the Measure phase – the team set out to explore the voice of the customer even more. Supported by an
external market research company, the team developed a client satisfaction survey that was conducted by telephone
with about 130 car dealers. The results (Figure 1) were a surprise
• During the Analysis phase, the team focused on those two issues. The team first decided to examine the communication
process between the sales team and the clients. Surprisingly, it found that there was no process.
• The analysis of the interest rate revealed an additional, even worse issue: Some of the clients did not know the newly
reduced interest rate of the bank.
• The root cause for this serious fault was that the communication channel between marketing and operations simply did
not work well. Immediate action was taken to inform all clients about the better rate.
Benefits to client
• The bank gained valuable information about the voice of the clients and their needs, and the impact of internal processes
upon that, in addition to increased profits.
• The team experienced the power of teamwork, communication and process analysis, not just the application of complex
statistical tools.
• Additional improvement opportunities were identified during the project work, e.g., restructuring the client communication
process in other business areas.

14
Lean Six Sigma at an International Bank in Germany to help grow its Car Loan Business
International
Bank in Germany
Lean Six Sigma
strategy applied to
improve Car Loan
Business
Fig 1. Plot of Survey indicating reason for dealer dissatisfaction.

15
Australian Bank Revamps IT with Lean Six Sigma
One of
Australia’s
leading banks,
Westpac
Strategy to overhaul
Information
Technology (IT)
Services and reduce
waste
Client situation
• Australian financial services firm Westpac has launched a large-scale initiative to overhaul its information technology (IT)
services, part of which will be accomplished through the application of Lean and Six Sigma techniques to reduce waste
and remove unnecessary banking processes.
 Begun piloting its Lean techniques across 12 branches in three of its five bank brands.
 Identified some 250 opportunities where they can improve, out of which 25 were implemented on priority basis.
 Found some 50 best practices across one or another of our brands, which they are now able to leverage across all of our
brands.
Benefits to client
 Previous processes took between four and six minutes for each customer. Through Lean, reduced the process steps from 12 to
five, halved the process time and removed a substantial amount of paper.
 The project has also resulted in a reduction of 30,000 hours in work.
 In just 12 months, reduced complaints by some 45 percent.

16
A merchant bank saves a merger
A U.S. based
Merchant Bank
Strategy to eradicate
friction occurring due
to merger of two banks
Client situation
 When a US-based merchant bank acquired its major competitor, management was divided on how to run the merged business.
 The vastly different business practices followed by the former competitors were fueling friction that was driving top talent out the
door.
 Management deployed the diagnostic X-ray to build a consensus around how best to integrate operating practices and quickly
identify top areas for improvement.
 In the value-stream mapping phase, the diagnostic team compared loans that both institutions had reviewed to see how their
different processes affected approvals, through principles of LSS.
 The map showed that while the merchant bank was better at assessing larger, riskier deals, its approvals took much longer.
 The acquired bank was faster and delivered better customer service-but its deals typically were smaller.
 The team's follow-up benchmarking exercise against competitors showed that the merchant bank had many unnecessary
approval steps, which frustrated its best customers.
 The team prioritized improvements by looking for quick, high-impact solutions that would help retain talent. At the top of the list
was a loan-approval system with a fork in the path: Lower-risk deals take a simpler route, while harder deals go through a more
rigorous, but standardized, process.
Benefits to client
• The solution incorporated the acquired bank's speed and predictability with the acquiring bank's sophistication for
handling larger deals, allowing the merged entity to accelerate approvals and increase its average deal size by 35
percent.

17
A major Asian bank uses Lean Six Sigma to support it’s growth strategy
A major Asian
Bank
Strategy to take
advantage of a
residential property
market slowdown and
support growth
strategy
Client situation
 When a major Asian bank wanted to take advantage of a residential property market slowdown to grow its commercial banking
division, it recognized that it would need to overhaul its credit processes at every level in order to handle a larger volume of
complex loan applications.
 Value-stream mapping revealed major trouble spots, including a lack of uniformity in loan application approvals that resulted in
delays and errors that required costly rework.
 Instead of adhering to decision rules derived from long institutional experience, credit officers too often made lending decisions
based on personal judgment.
 The diagnostic team then compared loan-approval processes across different bank branches to find out how long, where, and
why applications were stuck.
 The benchmarking exercise revealed potential improvements by more broadly applying the best local practices.
 For example, the team discovered that one branch expedited loan application decisions by simply assigning a credit officer to
work alongside loan managers on the bank floor.
 With value-mapping and benchmarking results in hand, the bank prioritized a short list of high-value opportunities, the third
element of the diagnostic X-ray.
 By focusing on one of these-developing a fast track for processing lower-risk loans-the Lean Six Sigma black belts delivered
concrete results.
Benefits to client
• Nearly half of all loan applications now get expedited treatment through the new fast-track approval process, which has
translated into a 30 percent quicker approval time for customers and errors requiring rework have dropped by 25
percent.
• As a result, new business is fueling growth at 2.5 times the market. Approval times now take 3-6 days less, ranging from
7-14 days, down from 10-20 days.
• With more experienced credit officers working in the field, the number of loans requiring more time intensive reviews has
dropped from 20 percent to 5 percent.

Appendix 3:
Representative Credentials

Chapter 3. Case Studies in Banking
Midsized debt collection agency improves debt collection rate using Lean Six Sigma
Client Challenge
• A midsized debt collection agency was in trouble with one of its largest clients. The client was unhappy with the agency’s debt
collection rate, and was threatening to take their business elsewhere if things did not improve.
• The manager of the agency division thought this would be a good test of the Lean Six Sigma methodology. Understanding the urgency
to find a permanent fix to this low-collection-rate problem, corporate management agreed and chartered a team to be led by the Green
Belt.
• Like many financial services sectors, the collection industry is data rich but information poor. That is, there is all types of data that can
be measured on a daily or even a per-call basis, but decisions are often made by “gut feel”.
Key Activities
• The team began looking at translating client needs into process metrics, or measures. The team recognized several peculiarities in the
data that it would have to deal with: There is an annual cycle to the amount of recovered debts.
• For instance, there is a peak in debt payment during tax refund season and a valley right before the Christmas holidays. If the metrics
the team used did not level out that effect, it would be difficult to compare performance across the year.
• As a consequence of these considerations, the project team decided to use a six-month “cumulative recovery” rate as it’s metric. The
team thought that using a six-month window would even out the cyclic effect and reflect the impact of account age.
• The issue of “Where does the agency want to be?” has a couple of components: Knowing what the best performers are capable of
achieving; Figuring out how much improvement is reasonable given where the agency is today
• The team addressed the first of these issues by benchmarking another communication industry client where recovery rates were
higher, close to 5 percent. The team decided to aim for a 60 percent improvement in the gap between where the process was and the
benchmark, establishing a goal of a 4.3 percent cumulative recovery rate.
• After application of principles of LSS, analysis revealed that personal contact with a debtor was critical. The team now had to look
at how the process was run and what it would take to improve contact with debtors.
• Finally, the team hit upon one solution: Making a protocol change in how the automatic dialing program decided which numbers to dial.
Previously, all phone numbers were treated equally; now the auto dialer gave priority to accounts where there had not been any
personal contact.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Training of staff
• Lean competence centre

Midsized debt collection agency improves debt collection rate using Lean Six Sigma
Outcomes
• Solution worked well because it was entirely within the control of the agency, it was transparent to the client and the debtors, and no
capital expenditure was necessary.
• The solution was piloted in a small segment of the client’s accounts. This resulted in an immediate jump in the recovery rate of $54,000
annually in gross collections.
• The results were verified to be significant both practically and statistically, so the improvement was rolled into the entire client portfolio.
The collection agency hit its target of a 4.3 percent recovery rate, and the client realized an annual increase of $865,000 in gross
collected debt.
• The agency not only retained the complaining client’s business but used the capability improvements to save another account.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Lean competence centre
Fig 1. Shows the increase in the average six-month cumulative
recovery rate for the segment of client accounts affected by the
pilot improvement.
Fig 2. Shows graphically the improvement to the recovery
percentage made during the pilot program.

Financial Services Company – Reduction of Quotation Time using Lean Six Sigma
principles
Client Challenge
A financial services company conducted a Lean Six Sigma DMAIC project to improve its quotation process, which it uses to
estimate the cost of its various services. One of the goals of the project was to reduce the standard processing time of the quotation
process, which at that point was measured against an internally derived target of delivering a quote within five days after receipt of a work
item.
Key Activities
While conducting a value stream mapping exercise, the Black Belt in charge of the project examined the wait times in the process and
came up with a surprising result, yielding a quick win that was easy to implement and provided big returns. The key activities of the team
included:
• The initial Lean perspective was to identify and remove non-value-added steps, thereby reducing the process cycle time. This was in
line with senior management’s desire to increase customer satisfaction by delivering quotes to customers faster, which in turn was
putting pressure on the operational processing teams.
• The process was mapped and process cycle times were calculated for the quotes. These quotes were split into three types, based on
complexity and size, which did not include wait times.
• The project team began exploring the concept that had initiated the project, namely that customer satisfaction could be increased by a
quicker turnaround of quotes. Gathering voice-of-the-customer feedback through telephone surveys, however, revealed that this
assumption was incorrect. The most important factor to the customers (aside from quality and price) was receiving quotes when they
needed them. Sometimes they needed a quick turnaround, while in other instances they were happy to wait for a longer period.
• In the case of the financial services company example, the opportunity to make a positive impact on process cycle time and WIP early
in the project allowed the Black Belt to provide the project sponsor with a measurable and fairly painless improvement.
• Outcomes
• Annualized financial project benefit (completed projects): $663 million
• Number of projects per Black Belt at any given time: two to five
• Average savings per completed project: $435,000
Area ofAssistance
Lean Management program
setup:
• Process Improvement
• Quality Management in Business
Performance
• Customer Service and Satisfaction

Six Sigma Concept within Banking System- DMAIC model
Client Challenge
The bank is a proprietary of one of the biggest European banks, which has become the key player at the banking market of Central and
South-East Europe. Bank had a planned result to be one of the first banks in Serbia which will achieve best-in-class quality level of its
processes of providing services. It had the goal to improve total satisfaction of its clients by defining and realization of next quality goals.
Key Activities
• The process is recorded according to SIPOC model and improved by usage of tools and quality models.
• Pareto method enabled extraction of vital minority of characteristics that influence the quality of the process itself.
• Ishikawa method was used for identification of sample root and statistical process control was used for monitoring variations critical to
quality characteristics (CTQs). All this enabled achieving faster developing crediting process that has less variation of CTQs and
possibility for management to monitor the process at any time.
• Consequences of noticed problems in crediting process are errors that appear and influence clients' satisfaction, and, at the same
time, banks profit.
• All remarks can be brought to a point that long period of the cycle is credit approval. Duration of a cycle for providing services is the
biggest problem that servicing organizations are faced to. Rough analyses of cycle duration show that there are large reserves and
possibilities for shortening.
• Outcomes
• Simplification of service providing processes and removing activities which do not make additional value so the part of those activities
in the whole process is less than 20%.
• Increasing customer's satisfaction – clients for 50% every two years, so it can accomplish customer's satisfaction on a level of 95%.
• Decreasing mistakes in processes that make additional value for 50% every year in comparison to previous with the end goal of
achieving best-in-class process.
• Faster providing services to customers– clients and reducing cycle time for 20% each year in comparison to previous.
• Increasing profit by share- 10% more every year in comparison to following.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance- Crediting Processes

Lean Six Sigma at American Express
Client Challenge
American Express began their Six Sigma journey with a pilot initiative late in 1998. A small group of Black Belts across disciplines,
functions and business units were trained and completed projects. After the initial pilot the program spread slowly to other business units.
Key Activities
• Applied in measuring behaviors and designing tools to help staff build relationships rather than sell products.
• Used the Pareto methods, principles of Lean, Ishikawa concept in product design and development focused on improving customer
satisfaction and overall efficiency
• Steadily increased the number of employees trained in Six Sigma tools and principles
• Not only using Six Sigma to reduce errors in existing processes, but also applying it in product development to build quality in from the
start
• Focus on making core processes inherently more efficient by reducing costs while increasing quality
• Outcomes
• In 2002, Six Sigma activities produced nearly $200 million in financial benefits and delivered important quality enhancements
• In 2003, approximately $500MM of the identified reengineering benefits were attributable to Lean Six Sigma efforts
• Delivered more than $1 billion in reengineering benefits for the fourth year in a row in 2004, with pre-tax margin improved to 17.0
percent from 16.4 percent a year ago.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance- Sales Processes

Lean Six Sigma at JP Morgan Chase
Client Challenge
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the second largest bank in the US. The leading global financial services firm was built from the successful
merger of JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan Bank in December 2000 and the recent merger with Bank One in July 2004. Six Sigma dates
back to 1998 at JPMorgan where it was introduced as a corporate-wide initiative focused on expense reduction projects. Today, Lean Six
Sigma Productivity & Quality became one of JPMorgan Chase’s top six strategic initiatives in 2002 and focuses not only on expense
reduction but revenue increase and customer satisfaction as well.
Key Activities
• The firm’s clients and shareholders benefited from Lean Six Sigma – a set of tools that were used in guiding teams in understanding
what clients need and then helps them meet those needs flawlessly.
• Emphasis was placed on customer-focused operations and rigorous service levels
• Used extensively in enhancing customers’ experience and removing costs from larger and more complex operations
• Outcomes
• Increase in customer satisfaction and improvement of efficiency and in process cycle time in 30%
• $145 million in savings achieved through restructuring, productivity and quality programs in 2001
• $400 million in financial benefits in 2002
• In 2003, productivity and quality efforts yielded more than $1 billion pre-tax in net financial benefits, more than doubling those
achieved in 2002
• Over $half-billion pre-tax in net financial benefits came from re-engineering key business processes using the disciplined methodology
of Lean Six Sigma
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance

Lean Six Sigma at Merrill Lynch
Client Challenge
Service Ownership is a Six Sigma initiative in Merrill Lynch’s call centers that gives agents more responsibility — and more tools — to
ensure that every caller is satisfied with their service.
Key Activities
In 2002 Merrill Lynch won Gold and Bronze at the AQP National Team Excellence Awards for two outstanding LSS projects:
• Merrill Lynch’s Partnering Team consists of Merrill Lynch and its five major suppliers that were tasked with improving equipment
efficiencies.
• Its mission consisted of increasing equipment processing throughput, reducing rework, and driving down cost. The team exceeded all
of its goals.
• Merrill Lynch Statement Efficiency, led by Jim Friscia, focused on decreasing the length of the statement without impacting client data.
• Outcomes
• Merrill Lynch achieved an annualized cost savings of $1,088,000 while simultaneously strengthening its supplier partnerships, out of
the Partnering Team project
• A 15% page reduction was achieved, with significant savings in postage and improvements in customer satisfaction, out of the
Statement Efficiency project
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Quality Management in Service
Ownership- Call Center Performance

Lean Six Sigma at Countrywide Financial- FASTER
Client Challenge
In 2001 Countrywide Financial launched an internally developed, proprietary program called FASTER, modeled after Lean Six Sigma and
specifically designed for the financial services environment. FASTER as well as the customer satisfaction program PACE (Proudly
Achieving Customer Expectations) are both helping Countrywide improve all aspects of the business from boosting efficiency and
enhancing cost effectiveness to improving customer service.
Key Activities
• Since the program’s inception in 2001, roughly 6,000 employees have been trained, at various levels of certification, in the FASTER
performance management methodology
• Over 800 users of FASTER software, and approximately 350 registered FASTER projects under way by 2002, with increasing
employee utilization of the FASTER software
• Used extensively in enhancing customers’ experience and removing costs from larger and more complex operations
• Outcomes
• Delivered $76 million in operating profit in 2001 and had identified potential future savings of $560 million
• Delivered nearly $11 million in operating profit and identified potential future savings of close to $84 million in 2002
• Resulted in approximately $244 million in productivity gains
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance

Risk Mitigation with Blended Optimization Principles of Lean Six Sigma
Client Challenge
One large national bank employs a commercial risk-rating scorecard which, as the name implies, is used when making loans to
commercial entities (as opposed to individuals). When the bank found it was losing millions of dollars each year, it realized that its risk
scorecard was inaccurate and imprecise – leading to incorrect estimation of risk ratings, increased volatility of credit losses and inaccurate
pricing of commercial loans. The bank wanted to come up with a quantitative method for adjusting the curve so that it could refine the
general population model to better match the risk characteristics of the specific companies it was evaluating.
Key Activities
• The goal of the Six Sigma project was to create a more accurate and precise scorecard, which would enable the bank to make more
accurate loan pricing estimates, in turn reducing losses for bad credit.
• The team’s first step was to try to quantify just how far off the current risk-rating method was. To do this, it simulated the process of
assigning risks and making commercial loans to a set of known businesses.
• The team then compared the “expected losses” from these companies against an industry standard metric for those same companies.
There was a lot of variability in the expected loss – from about $2 million to more than $4 million. Also, the current average loss was
nearly $300,000 greater than what the industry standard said should be expected.
• The team created weights for the above factors using an analytical hierarchy process, a tool commonly used in Design for Lean Six
Sigma. To test this new method for improvement, the team first compared the variation in the pivot points to the original variation.
• A user guide and training program was created to ensure that all risk analysts had this new tool and were comfortable with the new
method of calibrating risk scorecards.
Outcomes
• The total underestimation of risk for the original method was 10.67 risk-rating points compared to a total underestimation of only 2.33
risk-rating points using the new method.
• the new method allows the bank to generate much better estimates of risk, and therefore make better decisions in giving credit to
commercial firms.
• The bank is happy with this quantitative approach to evaluate its credit risk-rating process and has expanded its usage to other
portfolios and applications.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Quality Management in Risk
Management
• Risk Mitigation through Commercial
Risk-Rating Scorecard

Check Imaging Improvements using Lean Six Sigma
Client Challenge
Supplying customers with electronic images of canceled checks instead of returning the actual checks significantly improves costs by
reducing outlays for staff, transportation and postage. Additionally, the case for imaging relates to improved customer service, transaction
speed and fraud prevention. Moreover, it is a stronger business case today than it was a few years ago. Fraud has increased – it currently
costs the industry between $12 billion and $16 billion a year, according to Carreker Corp. And the cost of electronic storage is now from
one-tenth to one-twentieth as expensive as it was just four years ago, according to Bank Administration Institute (BAI).
The business case for imaging checks is strong and mismatch of imaging leads to customer dissatisfaction. Hence, application of LSS
was attempted to improve the quality of check imaging at a major bank.
Key Activities
• In the beginning, the client was not focused on mismatching, but rather simply defects within the imaging process. There were three
main areas of focus that determine quality in the imaging process.
• A Pareto analysis was used to graphically depict the contribution of each type of defect to the total. The output: 62 percent of defects
fell under the mismatch category.
• The key was to identify what lay behind the mismatching errors. The team documented two root causes. The first root cause was
network failures. The second variety was created when there was a major hardware malfunction at the time of capture and the sorter
operator did not follow proper recovery procedures.
• The first action was to implement a critical to customer safeguard, ensuring the errors did not pile up at the customers’ doors. The
team concluded that by implementing a tracking number checkpoint, mismatches would be caught during capture – in other words,
before they reached the customer. The mismatches could then be quickly rectified.
• The second action was to implement improved training and sorter operator incentives so as to ensure proper recovery procedures at
the time of malfunction.
• The team also built a value stream map of the process which included key performance data such as wait times, setup times, rework
loops and processing times.
Outcomes
• The team was able to identify and eliminate significant waste and dramatically decrease cycle time by removing non-value-add steps in
the process.
• The team was able to cut the cycle time by 50 percent, raising productivity levels and driving out $500,000 in cost.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Process Improvement and Control
• Quality Management in Check
Imaging
• Electronic Check Cancellation and
Fraud Prevention

Lean Six Sigma at Firstsource Advantage
Client Challenge
Firstsource Advantage, LLC (FSA) handles delinquent credit card accounts for a variety of credit issuers within the United States. During
the baseline period, the average time it took a collector from punch-in to account access time was 11 minutes and 49 seconds. The
median was 9 minutes and 48 seconds, and a standard deviation of 6 minutes and 58 seconds. The process stood at a 0.58 sigma level.
Key Activities
• Using DMAIC project rigor, the team identified the areas of opportunity – namely, removing leakage and operation fee/contact
calculations.
• Another project, known as the Prime Time Project, demonstrated breakthrough results by increasing right party contacts through the
re-validation of “prime time,” which had never been statistically validated due to the lack of technology and skilled manpower
resources.
• Due to changes in the business environment, the team at FSA was able to statistically validate prime time, thus changing the hours in
which calling intensities should be focused.
• Once the new prime time was defined, piloted and implemented, a shift in operational strategy resulted in an increase of right party
contacts compared to what would have been experienced in a business-as-usual environment.
• Firstsource also proactively initiated a project to improve the proportion of times that property appraisers turned in assessment reports.
Outcomes
• The current process is now operating at a 2.0 sigma level, adding a significant financial benefit, from the 0.58 sigma level it used to
operate at.
• As the project team focused on the top client at FSA, the project resulted in a total return on investment of approximately 5,300 percent
over the course of the project Control phase costs, of which more than 70 percent accrued to our clients.
• Six Sigma projects were able to move the needle on appraiser performance from 62.11 percent of reports being turned in within five
days to 86.28 percent.
• Also through this project, the cost incurred on incorrect valuation instructions was reduced substantially.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance- Delinquent Credit
Card Accounts

Scorecards (designed using principles of Lean Six Sigma) help South African Bank
Reap Savings
Client Challenge
Standard Bank Group – one of the largest financial institutions in South Africa, with more than 1.33 trillion rand (R) (US$200 billion) –
recently deployed The Lean Six Sigma program involving its Personal and Business Banking (PBB) division, which provides financial
services to individual customers, as well as small- to medium-sized enterprises. The PBB segment contributes around 34 percent of the
Standard Bank Group’s annual earnings. In 2005, the bank’s management identified several challenges in the way PBB functioned, most
notably that it operated a product-centric structure that included individual silo operations for each product group. This arrangement led to
needless duplication of identical functions and documentation across each business operation. The combination of these structural
inefficiencies had resulted in excessive error, rework and waste in PBB processes. However, because there was no comprehensive
performance measurement system in place, PBB was unable to pinpoint root causes or propose solutions.
Key Activities
• One of the first sets of projects focused on the reduction of waste and rework, which required minimal IT intervention.
• Another round of projects focused on process redesign and optimization
• In the next stage of the deployment, Standard Bank needed to develop standards for process mapping, scorecard building and user
management. It also needed to introduce a framework and methodology for determining and documenting metrics.
• The bank selected a performance management software provider, and started with a six-month pilot program. The software provided
support during the formulation of business strategies as well as automated consolidation of data from business processes. The
information was provided in the form of balanced scorecards, digital dashboards and strategy maps.
• After the business process repository system was put into place, Six Sigma initiatives in the PBB division began reporting
progressively higher hard savings each year.
• Outcomes
• By the end of the first year of the deployment, the Lean Six Sigma projects delivered a total savings of R60 million rand ($9.48 million)
to the bottom line.
• For the three years, after the pilot project began, the savings were:
R90 million in 2006 ($12.94 million)
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance

Lean Six Sigma Principles Improve Operations at an Australian Financial Institution
Client Challenge
The mortgage division of a large Australian financial institution was experiencing excessive delays in its settlement processes, and was
missing expected deadlines more than a quarter of the time, significantly lowering client satisfaction. Division executives knew that poor
performance was hurting customer satisfaction and also that improving loan processing would have a positive impact on the bottom line.
They tried using Lean Six Sigma principles to dramatically reduce cycle time and continuously improve processes going forward.
Key Activities
• One key reason for the high rate of missed deadlines was found to be that the first-pass rate for loan documents was only 37 percent,
meaning nearly two-thirds of the bank's customers had to resubmit or submit additional paperwork. This analysis was done through the
Root-Cause Procedure.
• Processing time was also found to be significantly above industry averages.
• Recommendations were brought out to improve these processes through use of Lean Six Sigma
• Outcomes
• Implementation of the recommendations led to a reduction of average cycle time for customer settlements from 23 to 3 days.
• The first-pass rate of loan documents has nearly doubled from 37 percent to 66 percent.
• Also, the number of customers whose expected settlement dates are missed has dropped from more than a quarter (26 percent) to a
mere 5 percent.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Operational Improvement
Performance- Settlement Processes

Lean Six Sigma at an Online Banking Site- Creation of Centralized Process
Client Challenge
An online bank implemented a Six Sigma Black Belt Project that involved around the process of how deposits were made to this bank.
Since it was an “online” bank, there were no branches for customers to use. Instead, deposits were mailed using the United States Postal
Service (USPS). Savings resulting from the lack of branches and tellers were passed along to the customer in the form of higher rates,
free services, etc.
Key Activities
• Customer focus groups and surveys indicated that the process of making a deposit is of critical importance to a customer.
• The process from the customer’s viewpoint was very straightforward – they sign a check, fill out a deposit slip, and mail both to the
bank.
• Deposits were found to be the second largest driver of inquiries to the customer call center (13 percent of all calls).
• Through the Ishikawa method, it was found that customers expressed frustration in mailing delays and couldn’t understand why their
checks took so long to post to their account.
• The bank’s mission was to receive the deposits as quickly as possible and begin the deposit and check clearing cycle.
• When the bank originally set up the processes, a decision was made to establish ‘local’ deposit locations around the United States.
• Data collection from the Six Sigma project and Cause-Effect Diagrams revealed that deposits made to a local deposit location made
the process operate at a 2.1 sigma level, while the centralized, national process operates at a 2.5 sigma level. The centralized,
national process is faster (2.6 average days) than the local express reshipment process (4.6 average days).
• It did not take further data collection to convince the leaders of the business to modify their deposit process and move to a centralized,
national process.
• Outcomes
• Cost savings resulting from only printing one address envelopes (instead of numerous local), reduced overhead associated with
processing, fewer customer inquiry calls and investigations, and a more stable process resulted in savings of $4MM per year.
• The process was fine-tuned into one of higher sigma level, thus increasing efficiency and resulting in improved customer satisfaction.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance

Lean Six Sigma Helps Fund Services Organization Improve and Expand
Client Challenge
A fund services organization turned to Lean Six Sigma quality principles to enhance process control and increase capacity.
Key Activities
A cross-functional team identified and prioritized nine short-term projects using a Lean Six Sigma approach that included kaizen events.
Four of the nine projects are highlighted below:
• Eliminating line-by-line comparison of pre- and post-trial balances. In the past, a fund accountant reviewed all inputs and outputs to the
fund on a daily basis to ensure that the NAV was calculated correctly, a time-consuming, high-risk process. The improvement team
developed a new value to be calculated on the pre- and post-trial balances to allow a quick comparison, thus eliminating the need for
line-by-line reviews.
• Simplifying the corporate action (CA) review process. To ensure that the correct CAs (example: dividend distribution) were applied to
the funds, employees manually reviewed information from the core system and verified this information with a second source. Not only
was this process cumbersome, but since it relied on people to catch discrepancies, four inspection and sign-off points were needed to
ensure quality of information. The team developed a new daily automated report to compare the required values from the system to a
secondary source, highlighting any discrepancies. Since its implementation there has been a daily time savings of four hours.
• Creating an automatic feed of expense payments. Each day expense reports by fund were hand delivered to the fund accountants,
who then manually entered the information into the core system. Managers would verify the information for accuracy later in the
process. The team redesigned the process to automatically feed the expense information from the original source on a daily basis,
thus eliminating the need for distribution, entry, and verification steps.
• Eliminating manual price change sheets. In the past, fund accountants created daily spreadsheets to calculate the percentage change
in the NAV by comparing each day’s price to that of the previous day. This time-consuming, manual process introduced the possibility
of data entry errors and miscalculations. The improvement team redesigned and automated the report to replace the manual process.
Now a percent NAV change report is generated daily, thus reducing or eliminating miscalculations and rework.
Outcomes
• In just four months, nine quick-fix projects were completed for a savings of $220,000.
• The success of smaller projects paved the way for addressing larger strategic improvement projects.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
Performance- Increasing Capacity

DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) Helps Major International Banking Company in Process
Simulation
Client Challenge
DFLSS is the subset of Lean Six Sigma tools that encompasses everything from going deep into customer needs, to defining design
specifications for products and services, to evaluating alternative solutions.
It is that last capability – evaluating solutions – that proved invaluable for a major international banking company. Like all banks, it
sometimes had to deny loan applications. Obviously the company would prefer to give more customers a “yes” answer because of the
likelihood those customers will do more business with them in the future, but it would be fiscally irresponsible to accept applicants who did
not meet the bank’s risk appetite.
The proposed solution: Find a way to partner with a subcontract provider willing to assume the greater risk so that the bank could tell more
customers “yes.” Besides letting the bank increase customer retention, anticipated benefits included $6 million in increased revenue per
year. The bank turned to DFLSS techniques to provide a solution and predict outcomes.
Key Activities
Having the completed DFLSS analysis to draw from, the team could define a lot of the likely attributes of the process, such as cycle time,
queues, staff time required for processing the loans, and more. The team initially defined two scenarios it wanted to test:
• Fixed Resources: Seeing how many loans per hour could be handled, assuming that current staffing levels were maintained.
• Target Volume: Determining what staffing levels would be needed if they could reach 60,000 denied loan referrals per year.
• The team created a software simulation model of the new process flow, using the estimated task times, resource levels, and other
constraints.
• With the proposed process complete, the team first tested Scenario 1, running the data three months into the future. As it turned out,
the team never got around to testing Scenario 2 because the results from Scenario 1 showed that this process could never be
profitable under current conditions: Staffing would be stretched beyond capacity even if there were only three loan referrals per hour
(the equivalent of about 5,400 referrals per year). The predictions showed that process performance would be uniformly abysmal,
never reaching above a 1 Sigma level (about 30-percent yield) for any of the key steps in the process.
• The economics of that level of capability were simply unfavorable, so bank management decided to abandon this effort.
• Outcomes
• Though this project was a failure in the sense that the bank did not get a new line of business, bank management was pleased with the
outcome because DFLSS prevented them from investing heavily in a process that would ultimately prove unprofitable.
Area ofAssistance
setup:
• Process Simulation
• Evaluating Alternative Solutions-
Predicting Outcomes

Chapter 4. Select Case
Studies
Banking & Financial Services

Sr No Client Brief description
1 A leading financial
services company
and banking
The benefits were:
• Reduction of transfer processing time in more than 40%.
• Increase in customer satisfaction
• Annual savings of $ 74,000 and $ 700,000 by reducing administrative costs and expenses due to unnecessary processes
2 The credit card
unit of a large
global bank
• Implemented Lean Six Sigma to differentiate servicing and treatment for high-value customers.
• Applied changes such as priority queuing, more competitive pricing options and faster dispute resolutions.
• Financial impact amounted to US$12 million net gain over an 18-month period.
• Resulted in increased customer satisfaction.
3 A European
wholesale bank
• Applied the LSS method to new product rollout.
• Saved US$60 million over two years from lower costs and reduced losses.
• In addition, the bank reduced its regulatory capital requirements (per Basel II), since the initiative reduced operational risk.
4 SunTrust • Used the concepts of Lean Six Sigma to improve the quality of it’s account opening processes.
• As customers open accounts in order to transact in diverse financial products, they are especially sensitive to the time involved
in the process, to any repetitive information requests or inaccuracies affecting their individual data. The account opening
challenges increase as financial institutions seek to cross sell additional products from diverse business lines.
• In such context, opening an account may take several days, cost a few hundred dollars, and score low in customer satisfaction.
By combining and rearranging multiple steps, institutions may streamline account opening through a standardized and flexible
front-end solution that feeds relevant data to the underlying product processing capabilities.
• Total time was reduced to hours rather than days and costs got slashed to a fraction. Consequently, customer business was
secured and it’s transactions started flowing earlier.
5 BMO (Bank of
Montreal)
• Using Lean Six Sigma methodologies, it has reduced errors, improved cycle-time, eliminated waste
• Provided annualized savings of nearly $55 million over a five-year benefit period on just $5.3 million in investments
Summary of select credentials in Banking & Financial Services (1/4)

6 Capital One
Direct Banking • Arming itself with Lean Six Sigma expertise and capabilities— management set out to change its management model, redesign
its major business processes, and nurture a culture centered on customer focus and continuous improvement.
• Three years later, the associates have embraced this new culture of customer focus and a commitment to continuous
improvement—all with enviable results to the bottom line.
• The Direct Banking business has been recognized both internally within Capital One and by external organizations with
numerous awards for accomplishing this impressive cultural transformation.
7 HSBC • The Quality team at HSBC transformed an under-performing unit in HSBC’s Investment Banking unit with a single DMAIC
project, using Six Sigma tools such as Process Mapping and Activity Based Costing and data partitioning.
• As a result of the project, net income climbed to an all-time high of $3m during 2003.
• As many of the improvements were being implemented for 2004, future net income was projected to climb to $7.1m, a 274 per
cent increase since the project began.
8 An Unnamed
Financial Service
Company
• They turned to a Cause and Effect diagram, as part of application of principles of LSS, to discover the multiple causes
contributing to delayed responsiveness.
• By moving from “usual suspects” to an in-depth investigation to determine true root causes, this company was able to increase
the number of tasks completed in 5 days to 97% – 19% better than their original rate, and 2% over their own goal.
9 First West • Went Lean in 2010, eliminating 562,000 minutes of waste in its first year to reduce the account opening process for new
members from a 60-minute exercise to a 10-minute one.
• Saved 900 hours per year in processing time for commercial mortgages (among other successes).

10 A leading
mortgage banking
firm
• The bank, whose clientele includes borrowers disqualified from traditional loan sources, wanted to improve customer satisfaction
and increase investor confidence.
• Once the Lean Six Sigma initiative was launched, the bank not only addressed customer and investor issues but also produced
significant and unanticipated increases in revenue and reductions in costs.
• The lender improved customer satisfaction and response time by 350 percent, cutting “abandoned customer call” rates from 12
to 4 percent and reducing process redundancies by 66 percent. At the same time, an increase in loan retention of 20
percent and the elimination of $21 million in risk exposure boosted investor confidence.
• Together, these improvements save the company $5.5 million annually and have generated additional revenues of $1
million.
11 A banking client • To reduce its efficiency ratio to around 50 percent, the bank focused on improving efficiency in its global treasury services
business, curtailing operating expenses drastically while maintaining high levels of quality and customer service through LSS.
• A team of Six Sigma green and black belts developed guidelines for meeting customer requirements and standards to measure
performance.
• Within three years, the bank reduced its costs by more than $100 million while revenues rose.
12 A local
government's
(United States)
financial
administrative
processes
After applying LSS and TQM concepts to reduce waste and variation, and improve quality, the following improvements were made:
• Payroll processing time was reduced by 60%. Purchasing and accounts payable processing time was reduced by approximately
40%.
• Accounts receivable processing time was reduced by approximately 90% while reconciliation processing time was reduced
by approximately 87%.
• Some of the techniques used to accomplish these very-significant improvements include; cause-and-effect diagrams, Pareto
charts, and a moving range control charts.

13 An Unnamed
Financial Service
Company
• Bank found potential fraudulent activity and incoming suspicious activity reports (SARs) had increased 10-fold. Quality issues
and high variability costs associated with these SARs had resulted in $80 million in annual vendor and contracting expenses.
• The process team used the DFSS approach for process design to streamline SAR processing and optimize staffing models. The
design was also built to accommodate future SAR types and regulatory changes.
• As a result of the DFSS improvements, the client experienced $6 million per month in expense savings and was formally
recognized by regulators for having a “best in class” SAR processing process. An additional $8 million in annual savings
through a vendor was also identified.
14 Bank One • An “overnight pack” entering Bank One’s wholesale lockbox process for processing remittance payments, would have travelled
one-and-a-half miles, by the time it has been through every step, up and down the elevators, back and forth between
departments.
• Bank One’s team came up with a workspace design that required just 386 walking steps to complete the entire process – an 80
percent reduction in transportation.
Other major examples of financial institutions that have used the principles of Lean Six Sigma in the past include Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae),
Fidelity Investments, Bank of America, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, The Korea First Bank, Chase Manhattan, American International Group (AIG),
American Express, Aon, Brac Bank, Capital One Financial, Countrywide Financial, Credit Suisse, DBS (Singapore), Bumi-Commerce Bank and MayBank (Malaysia),
Fifth Third Bancorp, GE Capital Corp., Key Corp, Lehman, Mellon Financial Corp, Sun Trust Banks, Inc., Credit Unions, JPF (Life Insurance), Barclays Stockbrokers
(Stockbroking), Fidelity Investments (Mutual Funds), ICICI Bank, Irish Life Corporate Savings, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, First Data Corporation (payment processing),
Lloyd's TSB Insurance, Merchant’s Bank, Minsheng Bank, National City Corp, UBS, Shinhan Bank, State Bank Central-Florida, Union Bank of Philippines, Vanguard
Group, Wachovia Corp., Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo, etc.

1 State Bank of
India • Initiated a campaign for business reengineering and employed lean six sigma concepts for the same in 2004
2 ICICI Bank • Lean Six Sigma knowledge- specifically the Cause Effect Diagram and DoE was applied to improve phone banking operations at
ICICI bank which lead to improved conversion rates from 3% to as much as 18% and revenue was impacted too by
combining these operations with branch banking operations.
• Also helped improve bandwidth usage and system maintenance, customer complaint management, relieving Manpower within
15 minutes of closing time and so on.
3 HSBC • Application of LSS in the tracking of Skip Customers lead to an increase in Skip revenue generation from 1.1 million to 2.15
million UAE Dirhams in 2 months.
4 Kotak Mahindra • Usage of Lean Six Sigma principles to complaint management lead to efficient processes with up to 50% reduction in the
number of complaints related to account opening.
5 Kotak Securities • LSS Principles like Root Cause Analysis, DoE, BDCA, etc. were applied in the Customer Service and e-Broking Excellence
Domain to help in reduction of ‘in Process’ queries- basically queries going in the queue, and thereby hampering the customer
Turnaround Time (TAT).
• Helped in reducing TAT by almost 50% and also improved the cycle time for queries by 38 man days!
6 WeCustomers • Application of LSS in reengineering the interface of Online Retail Accounts lead to increased sales conversion rates from
24% to 37% in a span of three months.
Other major examples of Indian financial institutions that have used the principles of Lean Six Sigma in the past include IDBI Bank, ABN Amro, Cholamandalam
Financial Services, Metlife, Max New York, Barclays, Yes Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and HDFC Bank. Use of six sigma modules by these banks not only
reduced time cycle for sorting out processes and increased efficiency of Loan Processing and Account Opening, but also resulted in vast improvements in customer’s
satisfaction as well as witnessed tremendous growth rate in business and the profitability of the bank itself.
Banking & Financial Services – The Indian Scenario

Thank you
Presentation by
Ashwin Swaminathan
Trainee
Management Consulting – Business Excellence
KPMG
Gurgaon

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