Pacific Alliance Bank

The Problem#

• When an account holder dies, the bereavement team must identify all accounts, verify the claimant’s entitlement, and release funds according to the applicable succession law — which differs radically by jurisdiction
• In Singapore, Muslim estates follow the Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA); non-Muslim estates follow the Intestate Succession Act. In India, personal law varies by religion
• The bank handles approximately 8,000 deceased account holder cases per year, each requiring manual identity matching and jurisdiction-specific legal review
• Safe deposit box contents must be separately inventoried and valued before release
• 12% of cases are misrouted to the wrong jurisdiction-specific team, adding an average of 3 weeks to resolution

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• Receive INHERIT documents from solicitors containing person.json with identifiers[] using common/identifier.json — NRIC for Singapore, MyKad for Malaysia, Aadhaar/PAN for India — enabling automated matching against customer records
• Model each bank account as an asset.json with category: "financial" and subcategory values like "current_account", "savings_account", or "fixed_deposit"
• Represent safe deposit box contents as individual asset.json entries linked to an asset-collection.json
• For Muslim customers in Singapore, use the singapore-malaysia extension’s SingaporeAMLADistribution type recording the applicable school (typically shafii) and faraid reference from the Syariah Court
• Apply the islamic-succession extension’s heirClassifications[] array with heirClass, fixedShareFraction, and residuaryClass (e.g. asaba_by_self) for faraid distribution
• For Indian account holders, use the india extension’s personalLaw field to determine the governing regime — hindu_succession_act_1956, muslim_personal_law, or indian_succession_act_1925

The Integration#

• Import-focused: the bank receives INHERIT documents from legal representatives submitting claims
• Internal systems map INHERIT data to the bereavement workflow, auto-populating forms and flagging jurisdiction-specific requirements
• Identity verification and entitlement checks are automated from the incoming document

The Business Case#

• Deceased account processing time drops from 14 working days to 6 across all jurisdictions
• Annual savings estimated at £2.1 million in bereavement team costs across 8,000 cases
• Automated jurisdiction-specific routing eliminates 12% misrouting rate, removing the 3-week delay those cases currently incur
• Customer satisfaction scores for bereavement services projected to rise from 52% to 78%

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. Solicitor sends scanned death certificate and claim forms by post or email
2. Bereavement team manually searches all five jurisdictions’ account systems for the deceased
3. Team identifies the applicable succession law — staff member checks nationality, religion, and domicile against internal reference tables
4. Case is routed to the jurisdiction-specific team; 12% are routed incorrectly and must be reassigned
5. Claimant identity is verified manually against bank records — name transliteration differences cause delays
6. Fund release takes an average of 14 working days from first contact

With INHERIT:

1. Solicitor submits an INHERIT document containing the deceased’s person.json with structured identifiers
2. Bank system automatically matches identifiers against customer records across all jurisdictions
3. Jurisdiction and succession law are determined from the document’s extension data — AMLA, ISA, or personal law — and the case is routed correctly
4. Fund release completes in an average of 6 working days