Get Time Back by Using RPA in Banking

The robots are coming—and they’re here to help.

How? By eliminating hundreds of manual tasks banking institutions do every day, resulting in fewer errors, faster processing, and hours of time given back to focus on higher-level, more strategic projects and initiatives.

We’re referring, of course, to RPA—a powerful, easy-to-use technology that banks and credit unions employ every day to streamline routine, manually intensive tasks and workflows.

What is RPA?

Robotic process automation (RPA) refers to the ability to record a sequence of human interactions—such as keystrokes, mouse movements, and clicks—through a software program and play them back on demand.

RPA is an advanced form of business automation that uses a combination of automation, computer vision, and machine learning to automate high-volume, repetitive workflows like extracting data, filling in forms, and transferring files. It’s highly effective at replacing human labor for such monotonous, mundane tasks.

But RPA doesn’t replace higher-level, human cognitive function, and it doesn’t think on its own. In fact, there are no “robots” (at least in the popular sense of the word) involved in RPA.

Instead, RPA uses software “robots” (or “bots”) to mimic human-computer interactions in order to perform a wide range of simple tasks—faster, more efficiently, and error free.

Why use RPA in financial services?

RPA is a powerful tool that removes human intervention from simple, repetitive processes. In doing so, it offers banks and credit unions numerous benefits.

For one, RPA helps ensure that repeatable tasks maintain a consistent, error-free quality. Whereas humans are subject to mental and physical fatigue—especially when repeating a simple process hour after hour and day after day—software never tires and has the ability to follow programmed instructions to the letter, in exactly the same way, in perpetuity.

RPA also performs these tasks much more quickly than a human can and at all hours of the day or night. This reduces the time it takes to complete certain tasks and ensures that daily and monthly reports and workflows are run, updated, and delivered on time every time.

For example, RPA is a great tool for screen-scraping hard-to-access data from a legacy platform and moving it into an Excel spreadsheet. It’s also adept a transferring data between two websites or services that don't naturally talk to each other.

And by eliminating repetitive, manual tasks, it’s no longer necessary for humans to be involved in these processes. This results in significant cost savings as staff can be redeployed to work on higher-level, more strategic, and customer-facing initiatives that add value directly to the bottom line.

Common use cases for RPA in banking

RPA is a natural fit for the banking industry, and numerous banks and credit unions have already deployed this valuable technology to streamline and improve internal processes and workflows. Here are just a few of the most common use cases in financial services:

1. Customer onboarding and account opening
   Banks and credit unions jump through a lot of hoops to onboard a new customer or member. Representatives must request identification, answer know your customer (KYC) due diligence questions, pull credit scores, match names against the OFAC database, accept an opening deposit, and order checks and debit cards. RPA can automate many of these routine processes by integrating them with external databases and systems, streamlining the account opening process and creating a better, smoother customer experience.
   
2. Loan processing
   RPA technology can automate a variety of loan origination and administration tasks, from application to underwriting and closing to annual reviews. For example, using RPA, credit analysts can schedule automated routines to identify and gather relevant financial data from applicants’ tax returns and financial statements, ensuring information is gathered and categorized quickly and efficiently for further analysis.
   
3. Interest rate adjustments
   When the Federal Reserve raises its benchmark Fed Funds rate, it has immediate downstream effects on loan and deposit accounts. With RPA, banks and credit unions can program automated routines that ensure that the interest rate on every variable rate loan and account is adjusted properly according to customer agreements and disclosures.
   
4. Accounts payable
   Accounts payable is still a largely paper-based function, making it ideal for automation through RPA. Accountants can use this technology to automatically read vendor invoices, match them with internal databases, identify errors, and generate payment—all without direct human involvement.
   
5. G/L accounting
   Given its repetitive and recurring nature, general ledger account reconciliation is another area ripe for RPA. Through automation, banks and credit unions can gather data from multiple legacy systems, validate and verify the information, and reconcile it with G/L accounts.
   
6. Fraud detection
   With fraud and cybersecurity risks on the rise, financial institutions must stay one step ahead of bad actors, and speed is imperative. RPA, along with machine learning and other cognitive technologies, can supplement human vigilance by continuously monitoring for anomalies that may signify potential attacks.
   
7. Regulatory compliance
   Financial services is one of the most highly regulated industries, making bank and credit union compliance a labor- and resource-intensive endeavor. With RPA, compliance officers can accelerate their workflows by scheduling automated data pulls from a variety of sources—enabling automated, regular report generation and distribution for management, the Board, and regulatory examiners. Through RPA, banks can help reduce the time and effort spent on compliance, ensuring smoother, less disruptive safety and soundness exams.
   
8. Employee onboarding and offboarding
   For HR, bringing on a new employee is one of the most complex tasks at any organization. The new hire must be issued an employee badge or ID, provided access to multiple internal systems, scheduled for training, enrolled for healthcare, 401(k), and other benefits, and set up within the payroll system. And when an employee separates from their employer, all of these processes must be reversed—efficiently and accurately. RPA is ideal for automating many of these routine processes, ensuring the employee enjoys an error-free, positive experience with the organization.

The future of RPA is orchestration

As compelling as they are, these use cases represent only the tip of the iceberg. When RPA becomes an extension of your workload automation and orchestration (WLA&O) platform, the potential benefits of both sets of technology become exponentially more valuable.

For example, when deployed with a powerful WLA&O solution like OpCon, RPA can be leveraged to address manual gaps in automated workflows where an integration isn’t supported or may not exist. As such, it can address “last mile” automation opportunities across existing WLA&O workflows.

In general, RPA can automate anything that can be performed manually by a user by recording and replaying the steps on demand. When combined with the enterprise-level power and capabilities of a true WLA&O solution like OpCon, RPA can address entire workflows dedicated to automating more complex manual processes and use cases—extending a WLA&O solution’s robust capabilities and benefits.