Banco Société Générale Brasil accelerates foreign exchange operations with OnBase

Banco Société Générale Brasil S.A., headquartered in São Paulo, has operated in Brazil since 1967, combining its commercial banking and high-value‑added investment banking services, supported by its global structure and technical expertise. Comprising three companies, the Société Générale Group employs more than 350 professionals and serves over 900,000 customers nationwide.

Among the many operations and processes within the French bank, the foreign exchange process was particularly challenging due to its manual nature. This resulted in slow processing times, limited agility and difficulties in improving overall results.

Within the foreign exchange workflow, one of the most critical documents for completing an international purchase or sale is the exchange contract between the bank — authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil (Bacen) to conduct international transactions — and the importing or exporting company. While contract generation was already handled by an existing back‑office system called ExChange, the process of sending contracts to customers and tracking contract signatures was entirely manual.

Contracts were emailed to customers by bank employees, while signature tracking was performed using basic Excel spreadsheets. Each day after Bacen’s close of business, an employee had to access FEPWEB — a digital signature platform used by the bank — manually enter each contract number, verify the contract’s status and update the Excel control spreadsheet. This process was time‑consuming and highly susceptible to errors.

The solution implemented for the bank automated all previously manual steps of the foreign exchange contract process, including contract distribution and signature status tracking. Hyland OnBase streamlined and improved the accuracy of the foreign exchange workflow while also serving as a centralized repository for digitally and manually signed exchange contracts.

After the OnBase implementation, contracts began to be automatically sent to customers for signature. Contracts signed digitally are delivered to customers through FEPWEB, an electronic signature platform already in use by the bank. This platform was integrated with OnBase via a web service developed by Hyland’s services team, enabling contract documents and signature statuses to be captured in an OnBase form that organizes all information securely in a single location.

Contracts requiring manual signatures are sent to customers by email through a web service integration between OnBase and Outlook. Once a new contract is generated in ExChange, OnBase automatically checks for newly created contracts, stores them, creates a form populated with contract data and sends the contract to the customer via email.

Each day after Bacen’s close, OnBase automatically checks for contracts with pending signatures and initiates a monitoring process that reviews all foreign exchange contracts generated that day. When necessary, the system sends emails with newly generated manually signed contracts, issues reminder emails for unsigned contracts, generates OnBase forms populated with key contract data — such as customer name, tax ID (CNPJ) and contract number — and securely stores the contract files. OnBase also links related documents, such as purchase invoices or additional contracts for the same customer, creating a complete dossier that is accessible only to authorized employees.

After implementation, the bank automated 95% of its foreign exchange contracts, significantly accelerating processing times while reducing the risk of errors, such as contracts being sent to the wrong customer. Contract distribution and follow‑up reminders were fully automated through OnBase, eliminating the need to print approximately 230,000 pages per year.

In addition, reports and dashboards showing contract status are now updated automatically on a daily basis, removing the need for manually maintained Excel spreadsheets. Document retrieval and access to customer‑related contracts were also greatly improved through OnBase cross‑referencing, which links contracts to all relevant supporting documentation within a single, secure record.