5 Benefits of Using Robotic Process Automation in Banking

Innovations in the banking and FinTech sectors have forced traditional banks to grow out of their comfort zones.

Customers’ expectations have evolved as well. Startups have raised the bar for the quality of customer service across the board. As a result, banks must adopt the same technologies to streamline their operations, provide excellent service and remain competitive.

To streamline their business, banks need to raise employee productivity and cut costs where possible. However, this is somewhat difficult since the banking sector has a fixed structure, and businesses are governed by strict regulations.

Fortunately, automation has made it possible to automate some of the manual tasks. Ten years ago, employees had to do work that today can be outsourced to RPA.

RPA firms offer solutions that combine robots and AI to automate some of the mundane but essential tasks performed by human employees. Most advanced banks are using these tools, and their role in the banking sector is only going to grow.

In the later sections, we’ll expand on the practical applications of RPA and discuss its potential for transforming the industry. We’ll also touch on the implementation strategy for banks that aren’t already using it.

Why is Robotic Process Automation Necessary?

The banking and financial sectors are ripe for disruption, and established players are being challenged by dozens of innovative startups. These small businesses run extremely streamlined operations, sometimes cutting out the middlemen to reduce costs.

In addition to other payment options, cryptocurrencies have revolutionized peer-to-peer payments. Such digital currencies allow individuals to exchange money with zero fees.

Due to these changes, traditional banks and national banks must offer alternatives of their own to stay competitive. Businesses around the world are investing in new digital solutions that perform traditionally time-consuming processes much more quickly.

When it comes to digital transformation, RPA is an important piece of the puzzle. By reducing human input, it can raise the overall productivity of the workforce and lead to a better customer experience. This technology also allows bank employees to develop their skills and focus on tasks that require intelligence.

RPA firms can help you plan the implementation of their solutions to complement your existing efforts. Some tools can make a difference within a month.

Adoption of RPA in Banking

Implementing RPA solutions requires a lot of planning and consideration of various factors ahead of time. Bank decision-makers must use a strategic approach that is versatile enough to be effective for years to come.

RPA firms predict that in the near future, technology will play an even greater role in the banking sector. It is estimated that in the coming years, almost 30% of the tasks performed by human employees of a bank will be outsourced to machines.

Banks need to prepare for this by training their employees to transition them into different roles. In the banking sector, a skilled workforce can be difficult to come by, so it’s best if companies use this opportunity to re-train their employees. Once the manually performed tasks are automated, employees can focus their energy on more pressing issues.

Advantages of Using RPA in Banking

The benefits of using RPA are mostly self-evident. However, some changes might be difficult to notice. Let’s look at the advantages of using RPA in banking:

No Additional Hardware

Managers are often skeptical about technological change because it requires significant investment in new hardware systems. Fortunately, RPA can work with existing hardware and requires no investment other than the fees paid to the RPA firms.

Versatility is one of the biggest advantages of RPA systems. They can be built upon existing infrastructure, and businesses can see the savings immediately.

Speed Up Processes

As we previously mentioned, banks often struggle with hiring and retaining a skilled workforce. In addition, due to reduced headcount, employees have greater workloads and tend to take longer to perform their day-to-day tasks. RPA can automate the majority of their daily responsibilities, increase their productivity, and speed up a bank’s internal processes.

RPA doesn’t always replace human workers. More often, it improves their efficiency and the quality of their work.

Perform Manual Work

To control the amount of paperwork, modern banks store their data digitally. RPA (sometimes combined with AI) can work with large volumes of data to extract the most important pieces of information. RPA firms offer ready-made tools that automate common, mundane tasks, such as data entry and employee payments.

Complement Human Workers

The days when robots do most of the jobs are not too far in the future. Simple data analysis tasks like data entry or categorization can be outsourced to RPA. Humans can then focus on analyzing the data to extract valuable insights.

The bank’s leadership can use this information to make strategic decisions. Thus, RPA can increase the efficiency of the entire chain of command.

RPA firms can help you identify your needs and choose the perfect solution. And they can set up these tools in under a week. RPA firms can also help you test the robots’ performance so you can gauge their capabilities to improve the efficiency of your workforce.

Abide by Regulations

Financial institutions today are under immense pressure to abide by ever-increasing laws and regulations.

The banks have two options: either increase the number of compliance officers in their ranks or use RPA to outsource some of the monotonous work.

Unlike human workers, technology can work with large amounts of data and, in most cases, enhance the quality of compliance efforts.

The bots rely on Natural language processing (NLP) to analyze transactions and make sure they’re in accordance with validation rules. NLP can process large volumes of transactions and raise an alarm to involve humans when certain records look suspicious.

This allows the banks to automate mundane work and process more data in a shorter amount of time. On the other hand, human workers can go over the records and do proper due diligence to avoid violations.

Summary

In this article, we explored the applications of RPA in the banking sector. There’s little doubt that this technology has the potential to transform an entire industry. If you haven’t already, get in touch with a few RPA firms to request customized solutions for your organization.