Kochi-headquartered Federal Bank faced a tall task due to changes in compliance requirements by the Reserve Bank of India. The new norm related to managing and merging unique customer identification codes to identify customers, and the data ran into lakhs. They estimated that if they deployed 10 employees just for this task to be done manually, it would take around a year to complete it. Federal Bank needed a smart way to tackle the issue.
The bank needed a solution and needed it fast to meet the regulatory deadline. This is when they came across UiPath and its automation solutions. The teams got talking and UiPath was on-boarded. The automation solution helped the bank to finish the job in six months, a neat savings of 50% of the time.
This standalone example points towards the larger trend that the BFSI industry is witnessing worldwide.
Direction of the wind
According to a report by Forrester, the automation market will grow to $22 billion by 2025. Similar to other businesses, banking and financial services are multifaceted service domains with multiple back-end and front-end procedures. Automation has the potential to enhance several BFSI functions, including payable accounts, credit card processing, general customer service, account closure, opening accounts and receivables, and mortgage processing. The demand for automation is predicted to rise sharply because of the growing need to increase the productivity of banking operations and the expanding use of cutting-edge technology in the BFSI sector.
Back home, the Indian automation market for the BFSI segment is also galloping at a CAGR of 20.8%.
Over the past few years, more BFSI firms have become aware of automation. The BFSI sector has seen a rise in the use of automation due to several factors, including a notable degree of automation integration into service offerings provided by business process organizations, centralized robot dashboard administration, enterprise-level robot deployments, and robot orchestration. Furthermore, there may be more prospects for automation providers in the BFSI industry in the future due to the requirement to eliminate time-consuming and repetitive manual operations. Banks and other financial institutions have a chance to stay competitive in the BFSI industry by utilizing automation.
For instance, take the case of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance. The insurer aimed to enhance the precision and effectiveness of company procedures by decreasing monotonous jobs and experimenting with technology. The company has made tremendous improvements in quality, scalability, and accuracy by leveraging automation for business excellence through the deployment of the UiPath Business Automation Platform. It has automated 22 processes as of now.
Bajaj Allianz General Insurance was looking at various aspects of their policy issuance process. Once you deploy and train robots, you can easily scale up as volumes scales. Compared to a lot of other technologies, which have long gestation periods, automation can be deployed fairly quickly. If all parties are on the same page and the process is simple and repetitive enough, it can be deployed quickly.
What’s more is that the emergence of automation as a discipline is also creating numerous skilled jobs, something that a country like India with a burgeoning working age population requires immediately.In the case of BFSI, repetitive clerical jobs such as KYC process, general ledger and account closure process, among others–automation implementation is creating jobs for analysts, architects, project managers, testers and support engineers.
The path ahead
The introduction of AI-powered automation is going to be the next game-changer. The synergy between Gen AI and automation is set to transform how businesses operate, ushering a new era of efficiency and innovation. It provides high-quality content and effective solutions, streamlining repetitive tasks so that employees can focus on creative thinking and strategic planning. By integrating AI-powered automation, businesses can achieve greater operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and competitive advantage. AI also plays an important role in documents and communication management by enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and security across various processes.
For example, the two new LLMs announced by UiPath, DocPATH and CommPATH, offer tailored solutions that outperform general-purpose AI models like GPT-4. These models eliminate the need for prompt engineering, providing businesses with customizable tools to enhance accuracy and time efficiency in handling diverse document types and message formats.
Federal Bank anticipates utilizing automation in conjunction with artificial intelligence to achieve even greater benefits in the future. This will assist operational and IT departments in utilizing automation to its fullest potential.Additionally, the banking sector may automate sophisticated decision-making processes like fraud detection and anti-money laundering by utilizing AI technologies in conjunction with automation.
“As the Indian BFSI sector embraces automation, we are witnessing a profound transformation in the way businesses operate, from reducing manual labor to enhancing productivity and efficiency. With AI-powered automation on the horizon, we can expect an even more significant leap towards a new era of operational excellence and innovation. As we continue to explore the untapped potential of automation, we are not only creating new skilled jobs but also paving the way for a more efficient and innovative future for Indian businesses,” said Nitin Purwar, Industry Practice Director, Banking, UiPath.
The increasing awareness of automation’s transformational potential is demonstrated by the rise in demand for it in India and across the world. With its many uses and bright future for employment, this technology is bringing in a new era of efficiency and innovation for Indian businesses. There are countless opportunities ahead of us as companies continue to investigate the unrealized potential of automation.
(This is a Brand Connect Initiative. All views expressed are personal.)
