Robotic Process Automation in Banking-Transformation Unseen!

Published: 2020-01-09 10:52:18

<b>Forrester <a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/The+RPA+Services+Market+Will+Grow+To+Reach+12+Billion+By+2023/-/E-RES156255">predicts</a> that the RPA services market will hit $12 billion by 2023. It has previously projected that the RPA software market will grow to $2.9 billion by 2021.</b>

<b>Robotic Process Automation</b> (RPA) has captured the interest of IT for good reasons by automating repetitive work and enabling employees to get indulged in value-driven tasks. It let your organization improve productivity, reduce costs and streamline compliances. 

Linda Tucci, the executive editor at TechTarget, <a href="https://info.asug.com/hubfs/2020%20Research/ASUG_Kofax%20Finance_Process%20Automation%20White%20Paper.pdf">defines</a> RPA as a “software that can help automate mainly back-office work that is rules-driven, repetitive, and involves overlapping systems: think tasks that search, gather, collate, and update data.

<b>How is RPA shaping the Banking and Finance Industry?</b>

With so many industries in the market space already leveraging the RPA benefits, banking and finance companies are one of them. Here in this blog, I have discussed how RPA is influencing the banking and finance companies. Let's read these in detail.

<b><i>Customer Service</i></b>

There are multiple queries that banks have to deal with every day. These include important activities ranging from account information to application status to balance information. 

Responding to queries like these that have less turnaround time is surely a tough task to handle. But by implementing banking process automation, the problem can be solved easily. 

RPA can automate rule-based processes such as these and can respond to the various queries in real-time. It can also reduce the turnaround time to seconds thus allowing human resources to do other high-value tasks.

With the help of Artificial Intelligence, RPA can solve queries that require decision making. This is one of the major applications of RPA in banking and finance industry. By using (NLP) Natural language processing, the Chatbots can understand the natural language to chat with customers and respond to customer queries just like a human.

<a href="https://dev.to/scarlett8285/is-the-advent-of-ai-in-ecommerce-a-silver-bullet-57ci">Read</a>: Is the advent of AI in eCommerce a Silver Bullet?

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/nul78lsxwj87l7p0xqil.png)
<a href="https://www.newstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/RPA-1-756x405.png">Source</a>

<b><i>Compliance</i></b>

As globalization continues to increase exposure to multiple regulatory regimes and jurisdiction, compliance has NOW become a focal point of all companies across the globe. Maintaining regulatory compliance is undoubtedly a daunting task! This is why companies these days face a lot of challenges in meeting the compliance needs.

Applying techniques driven by RPA in banking and finance projects can help overcome this challenge. A survey by Accenture said that 73% of respondents believed that RPA can be a key enabler in compliance. 

Several processes of compliance oversight operations can be enhanced through RPA implementation leading to high-quality compliance. You can incorporate RPA solutions into your projects too. All that you need is to <a href="https://www.resourcifi.com/hire-rpa-developer/">hire RPA developer</a> to leverage the incredible benefits of the technology.

<a href="https://blogs.deloitte.ch/banking/2017/11/5-insights-on-how-robotics-can-drive-financial-services-compliance-modernisation.html">Read</a>- “5 insights on how Robotics can drive financial services compliance modernization”.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/yyi454613fsj1haquijr.png)
<a href="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineImages/iota-robotic_automation.jpg">Source</a>

<b><i>Accounts Payable</i></b>

Though accounts payable is a simple process it is a time-taking task that requires extracting vendor information, validating it and then processing the payment. These processes take a lot of time to get completed.

Robotic Process Automation using optical character recognition (OCR) solution can solve this problem. OCR can read the vendor information from the digital copy of the physical form and then provide all the information to the RPA system. 

Later, when RPA gets the information, it can validate the information and then process the payment. In case an error arises, RPA can notify the designated executive for resolving it.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/hcdt02sihb8fdhj9o75c.png)
<a href="https://www.totalebizsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/robotic-process-automation-in-banking-800x573.jpg">Source</a>

<b><i>Credit Card Processing</i></b>

Do you know how long it takes to process credit card applications? Traditional credit card processing took weeks to validate customer information before the credit cards got approved. This created a lot of dissatisfaction among the customers and also cost a lot to the banks. 

However, with the help of RPA, banks can NOW process large applications within hours. RPA validates information like required documents, background checks, credit checks on the basis of which, it can approve or disapprove a specific application.

<b><i>Mortgage Loan</i></b>

Did you know how long it takes to process a mortgage loan?  In advanced countries like that of the United States, the process takes approximately 50 to 53 days. The complete process of approving mortgage loans has to go through various checks such as credit checks, repayment history, employment verification, and inspection. 

This is why the process of mortgage loans takes too much time. Even a minor error can slow down the process. Robotic Process Automation can help to accelerate the process by reducing the processing time to minutes from days.
Thus, applying solutions driven by RPA in banking and finance projects will surely prove to be a profitable deal!

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/2ykhzeed9pvxusxpi44q.jpg)
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aCVIJcBrrWg/T_0UUC-cfjI/AAAAAAAAAJY/IDt_kCTPEI0/s1600/Mortgage-Processing1s.jpg">Source</a>

<b><i>Fraud Detection</i></b>

The advent of digital systems has revolutionized the business world today. But it has brought along a serious threat to secured transactions. Fraud transactions have become a major concern for banks.

Implementing Banking Process Automation techniques can solve the issue. Let’s see how RPA does so. An RPA driven approach tracks the transactions and raises the flag for fraud transaction patterns in real-time thus reducing the delay in response.

In some cases, RPA has been used to prevent fraud by blocking accounts and stopping the transactions.

<a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/is-the-big-rpa-bubble-here-to-stay-94f014720aa">Read</a>:“Is the Big RPA Bubble here to Stay?”

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/iwlu8du29pk23gm6y63t.png)
<a href="https://www.nice.com/resources/pages/rpa/rpa-guide/rpa-ai-and-rpa-whats-the-difference-and-which-is-best-for-your-organization/AI-RPA-Blog-682X325.jpg">Source</a>

<b><i>KYC Process</i></b>

Know Your Customer (KYC) is an important process that the banks have to carry out for every customer. This process includes 500 to 1000+ FTEs to perform necessary checks on the customers. 

Banks spend more than $384 million per year on KYC process compliance, says Thomson Reuters. It means that the KYC process is a time-consuming process that involves a lot of effort and resources.

To overcome challenges such as these, banks have started using RPA for validating customer data. By leveraging RPA in banking and finance services for the KYC process, banks can now complete the process with minimal errors and resources.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/oirme06np0p5rauqvt9j.png)
<a href="https://www.basware.com/getmedia/3162ec34-39c0-40c7-8c3e-20f31910f7c1/RPA-criteria-1_2">

<b><i>General Ledger</i></b>

Do you know what things are required for preparing financial statements? It is important for the banks to keep the general ledger updated with information like revenue, assets, liabilities, expenses, and revenue for preparing the financial statements. 

Financial statements are the public documents that are accessed by the public, stakeholders, and media. The information that is filled in while preparing these documents needs to be done accurately. This is because even a small error in the report can badly affect the bank’s reputation and image.

With such a huge amount of data to handle, it is bound to have errors. Here RPA plays an important role. RPA helps to reduce the huge amount of data handling thus saving a lot of time.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/l4e34bmlxe8j0coyykrp.png)
<a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b6/3e/91/b63e912a8bb761cd3862437ec6853174.jpg">Source</a>

   [<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/05/01/the-robots-are-coming-to-corporate-finance/#5d167dec56b6">Read</a>- “The Robots are coming to Corporate Finance”]

<b><i>Account Closure Process</i></b>

Handling so many customers at times becomes a tedious task for the banks. With such a large number of customers present, the banks get an account closure requests on a monthly basis.

While there may be so many reasons for account closures, one of these is when a client fails to provide a mandatory document. But with Banking Process Automation, it is NOW easy for banks to track such accounts. 

Using RPA techniques, the banks can send automated notifications and can also schedule calls for the required document submissions. Moreover, in some exceptional cases like the client failing in submitting KYC documents, RPA even allows banks to close the accounts.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ijzghjmsowia82wdgtfh.png)
<a href="https://miro.medium.com/max/1516/0*hieQyfPky0IpABf2.jpg">Source</a>

<b>Final Words</b>

RPA has brought in a lot of changes in the way finance and banking companies work by enabling them to do more with less human resources and at a reduced cost. This is why many finance leaders these days are embracing Robotic Process Automation to structure more efficient finance teams, reduce costs and improve compliance. 

A survey in the financial section by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that 30% of the respondents were not only experimenting with RPA but were on the way to adopt it enterprise-wide. You can also <a href="https://www.resourcifi.com/hire-developers-in-india/">hire developer</a> for reaping  RPA benefits to scale your business growth.

Also, more than half of the respondents (nearly 53%) in Deloitte’s <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/bg/en/pages/technology/articles/deloitte-global-rpa-survey-2018.html">third annual RPA survey</a> said they’ve already embarked on their RPA journey. Deloitte expects the figure to reach 72% in the next two years.

Leverage RPA in your ongoing projects also to get the incredible benefits of this advanced technology!