The current scenario within the banking sector ensures that financial institutions step up their game, lest they are outmaneuvered by competition. With the advent of virtual banking, financial institutions need to find the most effective way to deliver the best possible user experience to their customers, all while keeping costs to a minimum – Think Robotic Process Automation.

With automation, banking and financial institutions can stay relevant and at the same time, live up to customers’ expectations in terms of timeliness, and more importantly, accuracy.

RPA doesn’t only showcase its prowess when it comes to impressing clients, the benefits that it brings to the organization itself are plentiful. Especially in the banking sector where a large number of documents are generated on an hourly basis, not to mention archives of applications and KYCs that render legacy systems outdated and extremely difficult to handle. With the introduction of RPA, the collection, extraction, and processing of information promise to be a walk in the park. One of the best aspects of the integration of RPA is its ability to seamlessly bridge the gap between technology and legacy systems, without having to wipe out archives and start from scratch manually.

Now that documentation and archives are taken care of adequately, what does the integration of RPA mean for an employer? Owing to the shifting of mundane back-office processes from employees to machine, employers will see a reduction in the need for human involvement – this brings about a drastic change for two major aspects. The first one being the very nature of a employee, no longer is an employee required to put in hours of mind-numbing manual work, that is prone to error due to either negligence or in most cases, fatigue. This brings about a revolutionary concept where employees can be used for much more important tasks, ones that require cognitive skills rather than assembly line rote work. Since all processes are automated, it is also easier to keep control of all transactions, all of which are recorded, categorized and stored for easy retrieval and review at any time.

The second aspect is cost – With the obvious shift in the way employees are positioned in the company due to the involvement of RPA the cost can be kept to a minimum. Less number of employees are required, and error-free documentation only means that expensive quick fixes are avoided.

Another great benefit of RPA that often gets overlooked is its ability to handle compliance seamlessly. Periodical changes in industry and government regulations are often, if not always, the most cumbersome to implement. With RPA, auditing is a breeze as it capable of undergoing alterations rapidly, making it ideal for dealing with regulations that evolve constantly.

It is no wonder why companies all over the world are enthusiastic about investing in this revolutionary concept. However, the usage of RPA is deemed impractical if used unwisely. A banking or financial firm would be steered towards automating usual processes such as account management, loans attribution, cards operations, or reconciliation. All of which will contribute considerably to reducing workload, but to realize the full potential of RPA, one must broaden avenues of its usage. Apart from the processes mentioned above that can be automated, RPA is now receiving increased traction in other areas such as risk management, cyber risk and resilience, sourcing and procurement, and finance and accounting.

With all the benefits that RPA promises, it is obvious that inculcation of the same is the way forward. However as with any technology, in order to attain much more than just ROI and far beyond it is essential to use the product to its full potential. The benefits of RPA usage may outnumber the ones listed above, and that can only happen if legacy system processes and support requirements are studied thoroughly, and RPA is applied. For example, in the case of insurance companies, RPA can be leveraged not only to the processing of claims but can also be used in the capacity of chatbots & robot advisors.

With all the pros stacking up in its favor, it is a wonder why companies are still on the fence regarding RPA. A simple survey pointed out that the main hurdle that RPA faces merely is, perception. A significant number of people consider automation as a threat to jobs, completely disregarding the fact one of the main reasons that RPA exists is to free employees from the constraints of low-level, mind-numbing work to focus on higher-level tasks. RPA will eliminate the stress associated with laborious task-management responsibilities and enable employees to use their effort in problem-solving and ironing out the kinks in the organization.