Contact us
Contact us
Case study

Helping a European bank cut costs and risk by offboarding inactive accounts​

Al Catto
Lead partnerAl Catto
Lead partnerAl Catto

A leading European bank faced growing compliance risks and operational costs due to years of accumulated data, outdated records, and inactive accounts. With no clear oversight of dormant customers and fragmented data across multiple systems, the bank needed to act. The issue became critical as it prepared to divest part of its customer book – transferring inactive or invalid accounts would result in financial penalties.

  • Industry segment

    European Bank

  • Function

    KYC Operations

  • Core capabilities

    Compliance & Risk

Key outcomes delivered
  • Successfully 'offboarded' 500,000 dormant and non-transferable customers, ensuring only active, valid accounts remained.
  • Created a clean and accurate customer database, giving the bank full confidence in its records, strengthening financial crime controls, and reducing regulatory risk.
  • Implemented an automated, scalable offboarding function, capable of processing up to 20,000 accounts per week with 99.5% accuracy.

Results

Accuracy

0

accounts removed, reducing risk, saving costs, and freeing up resources for high-value customers.​

Efficiency

0

weekly offboarding capacity, achieved through a newly structured and automated process.

Outcomes

0 drivers

quantitative drivers defined (financial, relationship, risk) to assess customers for offboarding / exit.

Challenge

Inaccurate data and inefficient offboarding processes

Our client, a large European bank, had years of accumulated data, outdated records, and inactive accounts. They didn't know how many customers were no longer active or who they were. Data was fragmented across multiple systems, and offboarding processes were inefficient. This created serious financial and regulatory risks:

  • Compliance risk – The bank's financial crime plan had flagged a lack of oversight on inactive customers.
  • High operational costs – Dormant accounts consumed IT resources, generated admin costs, and wasted capacity that could have been focused on active, revenue-generating customers.
  • Risk of financial penalties – The bank was preparing to divest part of its customer book to another bank. Transferring inactive or invalid accounts would lead to financial penalties under the terms of the deal.
Approach

Designing a scalable offboarding process

  • BeyondFS were asked to help the bank understand its customer base, design a scalable offboarding approach, and execute it efficiently.
  • We started by working with the bank’s data teams to clean and consolidate records. By analysing transaction history, balances, product holdings, and connected parties, we created a single customer view. This eliminated duplication and uncertainty, ultimately identifying 500,000 inactive or non-transferable customers for removal.
  • Next, we automated the offboarding process using Robotic Process Automation (RPA), allowing the bank to process up to 20,000 accounts per week with 99.5% accuracy. This reduced reliance on manual interventions and ensured efficiency at scale.
  • To reduce risk we took a phased approach, piloting offboarding with smaller customer segments, refining the process, and then scaling up. This minimised disruption and ensured a smooth rollout.
  • Throughout the process, we worked closely with the bank’s regulatory and compliance teams to ensure all removals met financial crime controls and governance standards.
BFS-services-3
Outcome

Exceeded initial expectations

The programme was successfully delivered, exceeding initial targets and ensuring only active, valid accounts remained in the bank’s customer book. The initiative:

  • Strengthened financial crime controls – providing a clean, accurate customer database and reducing regulatory risk. We successfully offboarded 500,000 dormant and non-transferable customers, far exceeding initial expectations and ensuring only active, valid accounts remained.
  • Embedded automation for future offboarding – allowing the bank to maintain efficiency and compliance. With their new scalable offboarding function, our client became capable of processing up to 20,000 accounts per week with 99.5% accuracy, reducing reliance on manual interventions.
  • Enabled confident decision-making – with full oversight of accurate customer records, ensuring compliance and commercial viability. 

By taking a structured, data-driven approach, we helped our client transform its offboarding process, reducing cost, risk, and inefficiency while improving compliance and operational resilience.