Banking has come a long way in the last 100 years.

Back then, you would have to go to a physical building to make deposits or withdrawals. With modern banking and technology, keeping track of your funds is easier than ever.

In recent years online banking has seen significant upgrades for users thanks to intelligent process automation (IPA). However, there are still a considerable amount of processes that could be automated for bank tellers too.

This blog post will go over some ways that an IPA solution can cut costs by taking over the mundane tasks in banking.

Many processes from Old World banking continue today in digitized versions, but new sectors of finance have emerged as technology advances.

Some of these sectors include fraud detection, fraud mitigation, recovery, credit card, credit cards, international debit cards, insurance, digital gold bonds, mutual funds, and more global standards.

Clearly, online banking has become incredibly useful, but it can be challenging for financial institutions. They need to stay on their toes because if they don’t, a tiny error can cause massive problems for a lot of people. This is precisely why so many banks are looking for ways to drastically improve their efficiency.

This is where an IPA solution comes into play. Mortgage processing, claims processing, transactional data management, collections, billings, compliance, and others are some of the most time-consuming tasks in the finance industry, yet they can all be automated. This would free up time and cut costs for banks so that they could put more focus on bigger projects or advertising.

Compliance reports are common documents found inside any financial institution. They keep track of all of the fraudulent transactions in the form of SARs (suspicious activity reports).

Back then, compliance officers would have to read through these documents manually, taking up hundreds of work hours each year just to make sure the bank was staying up to date. But with current IPA solutions, these documents can be read, analyzed, and filed in a matter of seconds.

IPA solutions run using software bots that can be trained to identify and extract specific kinds of information without the help of a human worker, leaving employees plenty of time to engage with customers or more complex banking tasks.

Another common area that banks are automating is their customer onboarding and account opening. Before digital banking, a person would have to meet with a clerk or accountant to open a new bank account. Many documents would have been filled out, and then multiple days would pass as the forms were manually read through by the accountant.

Today, online banking has harnessed the power of IPA so that customers can set up accounts almost completely by themselves. They still need to put in a bunch of information to make sure their credentials are legit, but instead of waiting days, it now only takes a few seconds/minutes. The IPA bots used in the banking solution can identify crucial customer information as they submit it and make sure that they are verified for whatever bank service they need. The room for input errors is nearly eliminated, and there is less need for a human worker to intervene.

If customer data needs to be evaluated further, data can be stored and accessed through a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) later on. Overall, an IPA solution will reduce manual errors and cut back on the spending to fix these errors.

The banking industry along with the healthcare industry are two of the biggest voices of IPA’s cost-effective solutions.

To be fair, there are still a number of organizations out there that claim IPA only has some efficiency benefits.  However, many surveys say otherwise. By incorporating an IPA solution into banking processes, an institution could save around 25-50% of its total costs.

An IPA solution is also incredibly adaptable. It can merge with existing IT infrastructure and learn how to mesh with new software when future changes come about. Changes to a business can be stressful for the executive board and for the employees, but having an IPA solution in place can make it a much easier change.

Additionally, an IPA solution can be implemented into existing infrastructure with minimal effort. If a bank is wary about the implementation, the IPA software bots can be tested in segments and analyzed for further review and consideration.

The key to any IPA solution is to make sure your business is ready for it. Whether your organization is a bank, hospital, hotel chain, or clothing brand, it’s important to know you have areas to automate before you try any form of implementation.

Review the kind of processes your business uses, and compare the time it takes to complete them manually with how long it takes for an IPA software bot to complete them. Once areas for automation have been identified, then you can start to look for further implementation.

If you or your business is interested in an IPA solution, or you’re wanting to learn more about IPA as a whole, contact a Digital Workforce Solutions representative today!