In the retail banking industry, automation has put down serious roots.
With banks worldwide estimated to invest $632 billion (USD) in technology products in 2022, automation is one of the top technologies, particularly in the form of autonomic systems.
As the banking industry becomes more adoptive of advanced technologies, the global economy is experiencing tumultuous times as global inflation hits record highs and financial authorities scurry to protect consumers and businesses alike.
To stay not just more competitive but also more safeguarded against economic headwinds, automation is a crucial technology for banks to adopt. Automation offers many key benefits, including a bank’s ability to boost operational efficiency, improve customer experiences, and enhance regulatory compliance models.
In this article, we discuss these three key benefits, specifically in the context of how banks can be making the most out of automated technologies to receive the maximum potential benefits.
3 Key Ways to Make the Most Out of Automation in Retail Banking
When it comes to the retail banking industry, retail banks have long been champions of digital innovation.
As a result, many banks have already adopted automation and other key technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI and cloud computing). However, implementing technological solutions is not enough — a bank must also monitor these technologies and adjust its approach based on the results.
With this in mind, let’s discuss three ways retail banks can optimize their use of automation:
1. Boosting Operational Efficiency
Automation can play a vital role in the banking ecosystem. In North America alone, banks stand to save $70 billion by 2025 through the use of technologies like automation and artificial intelligence.
However, how a bank chooses to employ automation is important. While automation can certainly increase operational efficiency, it is important to find ways to implement it without banking services losing their sense of human touch.
In Deloitte’s 2022 Banking and Capital Markets Outlook, it is reported that around 56% of banks think they need a new approach to robotic process automation to unlock its full potential.
The Deloitte report further states that:
“ — it isn’t so much about machines performing human tasks; it’s about rethinking processes across the value chain and digitizing these activities to remove friction, handovers, errors, and duplications to achieve greater efficiency and impact.”
This leads us to our next key factor in making the most out of automation in retail banking — using automation to improve the customer experience.
2. Improving Customer Experiences
One of the biggest ways that automation impacts customers is through the speed and quality of the banking services they are provided with.
According to estimates from McKinsey & Company, between 75% to 80% of transactional operations in a bank can be automated, including general account operations and payment processing. Meanwhile, around 40% of strategic activities, such as financial planning and reporting, can also be automated.
This is important to consider, as both transactional operations and strategic activities can influence the experience of the customer. For instance, with the assistance of automated analytical technology, a financial professional could provide more tailored and strategic insights to a customer than if they had to perform all of the market analysis insights and customer recommendation research manually.
Moreover, automation helps to bring more customers to the bank and convert them quickly. Automation makes it possible to vastly improve the time spent on customer risk analysis, onboarding, and more.
3. Enhancing Regulatory Compliance
Regulatory compliance becomes more complex every year, with retail banks facing even more in-depth compliance requirements as digital technologies become a larger presence in finance.
According to Deloitte, some of the biggest business activities to focus on when implementing automated regulatory technologies include:
- Data extraction from origination systems or other systems out of the bank’s internal network
- Standardizing data aggregation and developing reporting templates
- Enhancing regulatory reporting capabilities
- Improving data reporting and data lineage documentation (with a focus on data integrity, proper documentation, and an emphasis on report accuracy).
We can conclude that automation primarily assists with the data management, analysis, and reporting component of regulatory compliance. As such, employing automation to help better handle ever-increasing pools of customer and business data is key.
Final Thoughts: Partner with CPQi for Automation Expertise
At CPQI, we offer nearly two decades of experience in expert implementations of digital technologies, including robotic process automation, predictive technology, and more.
With flexible solutions that include managed services — essential ongoing assistance that ensures your technology solutions are always working properly and remain well-maintained — CPQi offers not just the expertise needed to make the most out of automation but also the support.
To learn more about CPQi’s tailor-made solutions, contact the CPQi team today to schedule a call.
