How can banking take advantage of automation?

Since the pandemic, banks have intensified the deployment of intelligent automation technologies for the benefit of their customers. As a result, the way traditional financial services are delivered and deployed is being challenged, making intelligent automation (AI) a must-have to differentiate and stay competitive.

A Gartner study reveals that intelligent automation technologies could enable the global banking industry to generate $2 billion of additional value annually through revenue increases, cost reductions and exploitation of new opportunities.

Although the opportunities for intelligent automation (AI) as a growth strategy in banking institutions are increasingly clear, its adoption in the sector remains slow.

And this despite the fact that the combination of several automation technologies could be a decisive competitive advantage in the face of new customer expectations regarding digital banking services.

Productivity, precision and speed

Without challenging existing technology, AI offers many advantages in terms of productivity, accuracy and speed. Not only does it allow banking institutions to reduce costs significantly, but it also saves time by eliminating the manual processes of collecting, transferring, entering and verifying data between different systems. Customers, employees, and vendors are happier because their requests are processed faster. Instead of having to perform tedious repetitive tasks, employees can focus on their work.

Gartner study reveals that intelligent automation technologies could enable the global banking industry to generate $2 billion of additional value

Let’s look at the example of a large European bank that decided to apply intelligent automation and reaped its rewards. It is one of the largest and oldest banks in Europe, which has significantly improved its service quality, time to market and customer satisfaction thanks to intelligent automation technology. The bank uses it to manage the operations of its existing systems through interfaces (APIs), so it can bridge between systems and correct problems. Overall operational efficiency has improved tremendously: higher transaction volumes, better regulatory compliance, and higher levels of quality, availability, and timeliness. Deployed digital workers take on many functions, such as automating client statement requests; reading clients’ profit and loss accounts to save accountants time or managing payments at peak times to save on service charges.

During the pandemic, these digital workers enabled the bank to rapidly develop and deploy processes to facilitate customer access to relief funds and other financial benefits. On the other hand, central banking services have been speeded up, reducing loan approvals from 12 days to four hours. Similarly, compliance reports produced for multiple national and European jurisdictions are now collated by software robots and formatted for internal review and approval.

Conclusions – What can we extract from this example?

To reap the benefits of intelligent automation, banks will need to adopt a strategic vision with strong management involvement: a holistic view of business transformation so that the automation strategy is not limited to a tactical approach, designed solely to reduce costs in the short term.

To make the right automation decisions, banks should start by examining the processes that engage their customers and what the competition is doing, in order to design an end-to-end process architecture that enables innovation. Companies that put the customer at the center of their strategy can use automation to improve the customer experience. Continuous investment in automation allows them to equip themselves with robust automation capabilities to act with greater flexibility. Ultimately, the strategic effectiveness and long-term value of intelligent automation far outweighs one-time gains, but true strategic planning is a must to achieve.

Automating business processes is an opportunity for the financial industry to reduce the administrative burden on customers and employees. The truth is that intelligent automation is the key to the future success of the sector in the coming years; Strong growth in automation will support the competitiveness of financial institutions and ensure their long-term survival.

Claudia di Rienzo, commercial director of banking and insurance of SS&C Blue Prism in Spain and Portugal