Bank Boardrooms Go Paperless

Many banks are trying to go paperless in the branch and in the administrative office to cut costs and time by automating processes once done by hand. At Lacona, N.H.-based Bank of New Hampshire they’ve extended that trend all the way up to the corporate boardroom. The bank has been using a web-based portal provided by Diligent Boardbooks for the past 15 months to create digital books for its board meetings, replacing the old paper books and ledgers executives used to carry into their board meetings.

The portal can be accessed online or through a native iPad app and has helped save the bank’s administrative staff time and money in assembling the content for its executive meetings, says Mike Muzzey, the bank’s executive vice president and CIO. The administrative staff at Bank of New Hampshire ($1.1 billion in assets) used to make books for the bank’s six board committees, which meet at least once a month, and its monthly board meetings. The portal allows the bank to quickly create digital pdf meeting books using set templates and dropping in content. “Not having to assemble those books manually saves us one to twelve man days per month. We don’t have to shred anything; everything is stored electronically. It’s considerable time-savings,” Muzzey comments.

Going digital is also a more secure means for sharing the bank’s top-level information, says Jeff Hilk, Diligent Boardbooks’ director of client services. “Everything is highly encrypted and locked down in a secure way,” Hilk remarks. “It’s far more secure than the paper world. What if one of the executives loses their paper version?”

[See Related: Citi Now Offering Paperless ATM Receipts]

The online portal and iPad app is password protected, and the bank can set the complexity of the password. The bank can also determine privacy and permission settings for the books from individual meetings so executives can only see the books and minutes from certain meetings, Hilk adds.

In addition to pdf’s the Diligent Boardbooks’ solution can also pull in power-points and excel sheets, and allows for hyperlinked text. All of the information is then presented in a “printed book experience, similar to an e-reader,” Hilk says.

Executives can then add notes, comments and highlights to the books that they can share with each other at the push of a button, Bank of New Hampshire’s Mike Muzzey says. And since everything is stored digitally, executives have instant access to the minutes of all past board meetings. “The directors love it, even the ones who aren’t so tech-savvy,” Muzzey reports. “They have access to so much more info at their convenience.”

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio