Banks and other financial institutions that haven’t embarked on the digitisation journey and leveraged on the current trend of RPA and Artificial Intelligence yet, will soon be redundant. It is amazing to see the extent to which some of the top players in the industry have explored this arena.

Simply put, RPA and Artificial Intelligence, aims to replace humans with a la mode software solutions. This, however, is not to be construed as a simple ‘cost cutting’ initiative. The increasing demand to look through loads of ‘Unstructured’ pieces of data, within a short span of time and turn out the ‘first time right’, has forced organizations to look beyond human capabilities. Additionally, the need to be the first in the market and to wow your customer, makes it mandatory to turn to digital platforms for solutions. Customers today look beyond the simple Problem Solving and Manipulative Tools, including Robotics, Chat Bots, and Speech Recognition. Natural Language Processing, Predictive Analysis, Analytics on Customer Behaviour and so on. The Banking, Financial Services and Insurance industries have been in the forefront to embrace this change and make effective use of technology to be ahead in the game.

Demand for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has considerably risen in the past couple of years. As we move on, vanilla RPA solutions are being outpaced by Machine Learning capabilities. Process Complexity and Criticality is not a constraint for automation anymore. There are enough examples where complex decision making tasks are easily and efficiently handled using the right tool. Be it Settlements of Securities or Investigation & Analysis in Reconciliations or Refunds & Recalls in Banking or Research & Analytics in Investment Banking, RPA and AI hasn’t disappointed us in any area.

However, there is one secret sauce to this success – choosing the right automation tool is paramount. There are many tools and platforms available in the market but a tool that may work wonders for one Bank may be a disaster for another. The choice of tool depends on multiple parameters some of them being:

• How complex / fragmented is the process that one is trying to automate?
• Are the Decision-Points straightforward and protocol-driven or are they diverse and discrete?
• What is the current Architecture Framework for underlying Operations Applications / Platforms?
• Does one require Machine Learning capabilities?
• What are the programing / support skills required and are they in line with the organization preference?
• Finally, what are the Licencing Costs?

A short and easy Assessment can help you decide on right tool and will also indicate the suitability Process for automation. Companies like Hexaware has successfully guided many of customers in some of the complex decisions like Tool Selection, Process Prioritisation and Implementation. This is the right time to choose intelligently and take the digital plunge!