Intelligent Automation in Banking
Built on the foundation of Business Process Management (BPM), supported by robots and integrations, and augmented by artificial intelligence, intelligent automation is taking banking to the next level. The banking industry must pay attention to this development and prepare to adapt.
According to Digital Banking Report, “digital banking disruption is going to impact every bank and credit union in the coming decade.” The industry is plagued with outdated technology, systems, and regulations; internally and externally. To be on the right side of this inevitable shift, and to remain in business, organizations must take action now.
How Intelligent Technology Can Benefit Financial Services
Implementing Intelligent Automation and taking part in the digital transformation movement, banking institutions can provide more value, while increasing revenue and cutting costs. It has both B2B and B2C benefits, and in fact, is becoming a necessity.
B2B Options
Certain types of chatbots are useful for B2B ventures. Banks can use them to reduce the work obligations and duties that staff members have, often with repetitive processes. This, in turn, can significantly increase productivity. Managers then have the capacity to prioritize other tasks and delegate effectively,
Garter has been analyzing the strategies businesses are adopting these strategies to benefit their business, from data mining to integrating cloud platforms for efficient storage. A 2020 set of predictions estimates that organizations that implement digital transformation will reduce operational costs by thirty percent by the year 2024. Your competitive advantage involves merging such processes with concrete budgets and expectations for future business strategies.
Providing important metrics is another potential function of a chatbot. Many sales representatives need to be able to quote numbers while meeting with a potential client, whether they are a business or a customer. Such a chatbot can deliver this message automatically on channels such as Slack to prepare reps and other employees for their meetings.
B2C Functions: Improve Customer Experience & Increase Engagement
Call centers can only handle a high amount of volume, and many users would rather not wait for hours on hold. You also would either have to maintain a customer department in-house or outsource overseas. This creates complications in the process and banks are looking for alternatives. Intelligent automation is one solution.
Banks and credit unions have been using more virtual assistants and chatbots to enhance customer service experiences. They can answer questions in real-time, and at any time.
The fact is, bank customers, want reassurance that they are making the right choices by investing in you. A chatbot can respond instantaneously, as can a virtual assistant. They can answer questions and assure customers that they are in good hands. According to Small Biz Genius, 64% of internet users prefer using chatbots for customer service.
Bank of America’s Erica, is an example of this. She is a chatbot that can pay bills and handle relatively easy transactions from deposits to withdrawals. This creates convenience for bank customers that don’t want to visit the bank to make these transactions or who need reminders about their credit reports and account statuses. 25 million Bank of America users can use Erica for their services.
In the country of India, the HDFC bank has a chatbot named EVA. EVA handles loans and interest rates, to help customers that have mortgages or other forms of debt. This makes banking with HDFC much easier. EVA is also the first chatbot for India handling millions of queries.
You can also increase customer engagement with virtual assistants. In real-time, they can provide financial guidance for concerned customers and handle service desk requests rapidly. That gives them an incentive to reach out and report issues with accessing their accounts.
Alternatively, they can ask about what types of investments to make. Consider how banks like Vanguard run IRAs that can use the stock market to increase returns. Customers may want to know if they should get a Mass Mutual fund or another type. Automation technology can provide personalized answers.
IA Is Also Impactful In Other Areas
Businesses need to track all of their tasks and processes. This makes your workday easier and increases security, especially for difficult financial cases. We go through some of the most common uses for AI that businesses use.
Regulation Compliance
Banks and institutions need to comply with state and federal laws, depending on their country of origin. If they do not, fines and even jail time can ensure for the human agents and managers involved. Banks need to know how to refine the process so as to comply with the regulations.
The regulatory process has a fair amount of repetitive tasks. Intelligent automation can take care of these tasks and simplify the process. This reduces the burden of compliance on the manager while providing a system that successors can use as well. Banks have reported a reduction in costs as well while using automation in such a fashion. Accenture Technology reported in 2018 that 84 percent of the bankers they survey have invested in automation.
Prescriptive technology, once it is refined, can also provide automatic recommendations on what banks should do after detecting fraud. These strategies can range from declining payments automatically to reporting certain individuals to the appropriate authorities. Having the processes and data in place saves bank managers from having to calculate the benefits and tradeoffs of certain decisions.
Risk Management
Finances involve risk, especially when investing in stocks and bonds or for loans. Banks need to screen individuals with poor credit to protect their interests and refine systems to keep outliers from slipping through the cracks. Human operators are not sufficient.
In the case of mortgages, banks expect that customers will be able to honor their payments. When a customer is unable to do so en masse, economic crises can ensue. We have seen this play out in the 2000s with the 2009 recession.
Robotic process automation, or RPA, is a disruptor within this segment of financial processes. They can evaluate customers’ credit scores, monitor portfolios for stocks and bonds, and make recommendations when an investment will end up as a loss.
Internal audits are another way to prevent risk. Human error can happen when employees and managers conduct audits, especially when you factor in biases and agendas. The Economic World Forum in 2015 estimated that 30 percent of firms will use AI to conduct audits and remove any human errors by the year 2025.
Fraud Prevention
Detecting fraud is another part of the process of compliance. Banks need to keep an eye out for stolen identities or money laundering. In addition, the systems must and have safeguards in place. Intelligent automation can assist with that and ensure that no financial institution is complicit in a crime.
We have to acknowledge that human error can lead to clients and institutions getting scammed out of money. Human error can also allow for money laundering, which can lead to banks getting in trouble with the law. Even when data is encrypted, the risk still stands. There is also the question of what to do once fraud is detected.
Businesses have many moving parts when they interact with banks, which includes merchants managing goods. Banks need to know how to protect themselves from customers getting scammed, or merchants not honoring their financial commitments.
AI has been used to detect real instances of fraud in bank accounts. The software also reduces false positives using data science and learned behavior. They note deviations that are normal and ones that indicate red flags for money laundering or other crimes. Geolocation, or noting the regions of buyers, is one such example.
One of the potential avenues of development is computer-generated customer profiles. Machine learning can create profiles that are at high risk of being fraudulent. After creating the profiles, the same software can match them up against real customers, as well as accumulated data. This reduces the number of automatic rejections of loan applications, in the case of interested customers, and helps flag real cases.
Get Started With Intelligent Banking At Virtus Flows
Virtus Flow wants to automate all of your processes and usher in intelligent banking. Increase efficiency by reducing repetitive tasks and tossing mundane training sessions out the window.
Virtus Flow is the easiest digital process automation platform to use for intelligent banking. Start streamlining your workflow and workload. Reach out to us today to schedule a demo.
