Speed is the name of the game in today’s world. With rising customer expectations, increasing competition and mounting costs, speeding up administrative processes is key for firms in the banking and finance sector.

But this is not necessarily a straightforward process.

Speed has traditionally been the enemy of quality control, nuanced decision-making and regulatory compliance. Traditionally a slow and steady process, assurance lies at the heart of all BFSI businesses.

At first glance, finding a way to speed up processes while still maintaining overall assurance appears destined to fail.

However, there is a way to streamline banking and finance with automation technology. Even better, this can be done with a single solution that can deal with all of the challenges currently facing the sector.

The 5 challenges facing banking and finance firms

1. Security & Privacy

With the growing threat of cyberattacks and a changing privacy landscape, security and privacy remain key challenges for BFSI firms. Ranking second across Australian industries for the most data breaches, the finance sector faces an uphill battle to protect the security and privacy of sensitive data.

2. Customer Expectations

24/7 availability, personalised services and instant communication are considered essential by today’s banking and finance customers. One survey revealed that 43% of customers expect to be able to set up a bank account instantly. Right now, this is something that many BFSI firms cannot offer.

3. Digital-First Society

The rapid rise of smartphones, apps and IoT challenges the traditional approach to delivering banking and financial services. With 31% of customers willing to switch banks for a better online experience, BFSI firms need to offer more than just an app that replicates their online banking portal.

4. Increasing Competition

Fintech firms and fresh startups with new ideas (i.e. no fees) are shaking up the sector and challenging the status quo. In 2019, almost 60% of digitally active adults in Australia were already considered fintech adopters. Banking and finance firms need to play catch-up to hold their market position.

5. Regulatory Compliance

Ongoing regulatory change in response to the Royal Commission adds yet another burden to BFSI firms. New rules and reporting requirements demand a new way of tracking data and verifying critical information to maintain full compliance. This has led to increased costs and complexity for many firms.

Why automation technology represents the way forward

When you look closely at each of the main challenges facing the finance sector, it’s clear that technology has a pivotal role to play in overcoming them.

• Security and privacy can get a boost with robust access and verification software.
• Customer expectations can be met with a range of automated processes.
• Digital-first initiatives can bring banks into the 21st century.
• Increasing competition can be seen off with streamlined online systems.
• Regulatory compliance can be improved with increased digital oversight.

Streamlining complex processes and automating manual tasks paves the way forward for the banking and finance sector. This approach delivers the speed that banks need to survive in the modern world while maintaining data accuracy to ensure ongoing compliance.

If you’re worried about the cost and inconvenience of making the transition, the good news is that you don’t need five different systems to access these benefits. You only need one.

Welcome to Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)

With the capability to meet all these challenges, an IDP solution delivers end-to-end oversight of your systems, data and customers.

By digitising documents as soon as they enter your organisation, IDP limits data entry and allows you to track the document journey. This eliminates the need to manually transfer documents for approval and speeds up the process for customers.

Extracting data with an accuracy rate well above 90%, IDP can read structured and unstructured data, further reducing exception handling. An IDP solution also features custom workflows to automatically route documents through a pre-defined process to save time and labour costs.

Intelligent automation in banking is forecast to save up to $70 billion by 2025. This presents a massive opportunity for BFSI firms looking to cement their place in the market, position themselves for growth and further reduce operating costs.

Key features of IDP for banking and finance firms

IDP offers a host of features that can be tailored to help your business deliver frictionless customer experiences:

• Document capture - digitally capture documents via email or OCR scanning.
• Data extraction - pull business-critical data from any data field (including handwriting).
• Data redaction - de-identify documents to minimise the impact of a data breach.
• Data validation - check data against master systems to ensure accuracy.
• Document classification - automatically classify documents to determine the next step.
• Document routing - create workflows to direct documents through defined processes.
• Document storage - once actioned, store documents digitally for easy access.

IDP in action: BFSI use case

The real advantage of intelligent document processing lies in its speed and flexibility.

IDP eliminates manual data entry and speeds up approval times to deliver an improved experience for both clients and staff. IDP’s customisable automated workflows allow organisations to create processes to suit a variety of applications. These include claims processing, mortgage pre-processing, initial client onboarding and updates to client details.

Here’s a quick example of how IDP can deliver a streamlined client onboarding process:

Step 1: Application documentation comes into the organisation.

Step 2: All forms are captured in the IDP system.

Step 3: The system checks that all required information has been received.

Step 4: Documents in each packet are classified for further action.

Step 5: Relevant data is automatically extracted (even handwritten notes).

Step 6: The system confirms if information from the application matches master data.

Step 7: If verified, these details are confirmed in the system. If discrepancies are detected, the application is sent to staff for further review.

Step 8: The information is automatically stored and instantly accessible by authorised users.

With an accuracy rate above 90%, most documents pass through modern IDP systems without manual intervention. This frees staff from labour-intensive data entry, giving them the opportunity to take on higher-value work.

IDP represents a golden opportunity for banking and finance firms to take a digital-first approach while overcoming the many challenges that face the sector.

Bring your business into the 21st century with Hyperscience and Umlaut

Umlaut are leaders in streamlining processes for finance and insurance firms. Committed to helping more firms benefit from digital transformation, our banking and finance solutions integrate seamlessly to unlock a range of time and cost savings for your business.

Partnering with Hyperscience, we offer a full suite of intelligent document processing and automation solutions. Leveraging the power of AI, ML and deep learning, the Hyperscience platform connects the dots for your business, taking document processing to the next level.