The banking and financial services sector does not have it easy. There are challenges and threats from multiple fronts. Yet, they must adapt. Challenges include dealing with economic uncertainty, competition from FinTech companies, the need to constantly optimize costs, dealing with digital disruption to remain competitive, and customers demanding an ever-greater experience.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can help address some of these challenges, but there has been some resistance to its adoption in the industry. Reasons include:
- Slow to change. Although adoption has been increasing, the positive impact of RPA has not been widely recognized.
- Lacking process standardization and organizational misalignment.
- Perceived incompatibility with legacy infrastructure and core banking platforms
In particular, some have suggested that RPA is not compatible with core banking platforms that have closed architectures. However, this is not the case. It is true that some core providers push their own automation technology and they do lack the ability to deliver automations outside of the core platform and across the enterprise. It’s crucial to partner with a firm focused on developing and executing upon a successful enterprise RPA program.
As Banking and Financial Institutions continue to drive automation as part of their digital strategy, it is crucial to adopt automation across the enterprise, not just at the core. By doing so, organizations can gain efficiencies and reduce regulatory risks. Therefore, it is important to recognize the value of RPA and take steps to implement it effectively.
By automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, RPA can free up valuable resources and enable employees to focus on more strategic activities. Additionally, RPA can help banks achieve greater accuracy and consistency, reduce errors, and ensure compliance with regulations. This not only results in cost savings but can also lead to a better customer experience, as employees have more time to engage with customers and provide personalized service.
Overall, the adoption of RPA can help banks and financial organizations achieve operational excellence and improve their competitiveness in a challenging market.
To get some ideas flowing, here are some sample use cases of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the banking and financial services industry:
- Automatic Report Generation: Compliance officers are required to read all reports manually and fill in necessary details in the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) form, making it a repetitive and time-consuming task. RPA can generate compliance reports for fraudulent transactions and SARs automatically, saving time and effort.
- Customer Onboarding: Manual verification of numerous documents makes the customer onboarding process lengthy. RPA can capture data from the Know Your Customer (KYC) documents using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technique and match it against the information provided by the customer. This simplifies the process, making it quicker and more efficient.
- Account Opening: The account opening process is labor-intensive and prone to errors. RPA can automate the process, eliminating data errors between the core banking system and new account opening requests. This enhances the overall data quality of the system and speeds up the account opening process.
- Mortgage Lending: The mortgage lending process is highly process-driven and time-consuming, making it ideal for RPA automation. RPA can handle tasks critical to the mortgage lending process, including loan initiation, document processing, financial comparisons, and quality control. This accelerates the approval of loans and increases customer satisfaction.
- Freeze Stolen Credit Cards Instantly: Credit card providers risk losing money when their customers' credit card information is stolen. Traditionally, support agents manually process the affected credit card accounts, which is a time-pressured situation. RPA can automate the freezing process, saving credit card providers from labor costs and the costs associated with reversing or absorbing fraudulent transactions.
Whether you have already launched your Robotic Process Automation (RPA) program or you are at the beginning of your journey and seeking to realize the value of a digital workforce, achieving success can be a challenge.
Many executives are beginning to realize that without having an enterprise automation roadmap and automation operating model (AOM), along with a solid governance structure in place, they will not be able to achieve the full benefits of RPA.
One common mistake is that executives focus more on the technologies rather than the business benefits. Spending more time on PoCs and pilots without planning for RPA at scale may hinder their ability to see the full potential of what RPA can accomplish. Although RPA platforms have matured significantly over the years, it is important to review your RPA strategy to ensure that it aligns with your business outcomes.
Banking and financial institutions that adopt RPA can focus on building their business rather than just maintaining it. This ultimately helps institutions grow their revenues while also improving the customer experience. By automating repetitive and manual tasks, RPA enables financial institutions to optimize costs, mitigate risks, and offer better compliance without requiring additional infrastructure investments. Overall, it is important to have a comprehensive RPA strategy that prioritizes business outcomes and considers the necessary governance structure to achieve sustainable success.
