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Robotic Process Automation

Future Technology in Financial Services

Overview

New and emerging technology, such as robotic process automation, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) will profoundly impact and transform the workforce of the future across the financial sector.

Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is providing digital speed to market and cost take outs for financial institutions, but the successful financial institutions of tomorrow will be those who embrace the next wave of robotics technology and future technology to drive business outcome.

What is Robotic Process Automation?
As the push to go increasingly digital and do more with available resources intensifies, the need for companies to empower their workers through technology increases. RPA is at the forefront of human-computer technology and provides players in the financial services industry with a virtual workforce that is ruled based and is set up to connect with your company’s systems in the same way as your existing users. With robotics, you automate and build an automation platform for you front office, back office and support functions.

Benefits of Robotics in Financial Services

Banks, insurers, pension funds and other financial services institutions operate in a highly regulated industry and are faced with high demands for auditability, security, data quality and operational resilience. Robotic process automation allow modern banks to meet these demands and achieve significant operational efficiency.


The benefits of robotics are:

What processes are relevant for Robotic Process Automation

Financial services institutions can automate a wide array of processes with robotics across industries in the financial sector.

BANKING

  • New account entry across systems – moving data and doing multiple entries

  • Account reconciliation – duplicating and moving data

  • Report generation across systems and generated

  • Eform extraction – taking data from forms and making systems entries

  • VAT reporting

  • Accrual support – making and updating entries

  • Mortgage approval – moving data place to place and making calculations

  • Refinancing entries – making entries and updating records

  • Notification of delinquent loans – emails and letters to clients

  • Processing of credit card orders – from web form to mainframe

  • Audit support and validation

  • Fixed asset amortization

  • FX accounting and write-offs

  • Cost accounting and Purchase Orders

  • Bad debt write-offs

  • Month end close heavy lifting

  • Journal entry accounting

  • Credit note accounting entry

  • Accrual booking

  • Pricing reviews – performing calculations and entries

  • Fraud detection – by tracking account activity

  • Account cleansing – purging known old data

CAPITAL MARKETS

  • Client onboarding - documentation requirements check

  • Compliance, legal, credit and identification checks

  • Operational set-up of account in trading, collateral and settlement systems

  • Transparent status of onboarding process

  • Consistent data mapping between source and downstream systems

  • KYC/AML authentication: collection and analysis of basic identity information (CIP); name matching against lists of known parties (such as PEP)

  • Fraud detection - determination of the customer's risk in terms of propensity to commit money laundering, terrorist finance, or identity theft

  • Reconciliation - user defined rules to generate alerts on chargeback, retrieval request and response

  • Automated scheduling of reconciliation activity

  • Multi-level reconciliation that supports international & domestic networks across multiple delivery channels

  • Entitlement engine - providing timely, accurate distributions of dividends and interest

  • Receive/track dividend, interest, and amortized principal payment information and collect the distribution of all dividend and interest allocations

  • Simplifies/Enforces the management of complex entitlement policies

INSURANCE

  • Product Administration - update systems and produce client details for sales of new products

  • Policy Document Data Transfer from legacy system to new Applications, Systems, 3rd Parties.

  • Products Sales Support - customer data gathering, adherence to compliance and rules of sale

  • Bulk Payments (Motor) - updates policies following claims made through specialist claims companies.

  • Bulk Recoveries (Motor) - updates policies of vehicle recovery amounts and fees supplied by third parties

  • Unallocated Cash Report - works a report and writes off any cash discrepancy under a certain value.

  • Deceased Notification - processing of insurance policies following notification of a death.

  • Insurance Comparison - downloads leads from Internet Comparison providers and loads entries to lead management system

  • Compliance Reporting Automation - automated preparation of reports for the RPA

  • Marketing Campaign Support - high speed response for back office automation to support new product launches, product incentives

  • Credit Card Rejections - works a report of rejected card payments and over a period sends letter to the customer before ultimately cancelling the insurance.

  • Redemptions Processing - cross checking to multiple systems for Compliance assurance

  • Payment transfer - paid directly to a client or reinvested/distributed to other products across multiple systems or third party applications

  • Right of Set-Off and Debt Recovery

  • Amend Standing Order, Direct Debit, Address details across multiple systems

  • Accounts Data Mismatches across disparate systems

Robotic Process Automation Checklist

To identify processes that are suitable for robotic process automation you can use this check list:


The process should be rule-based and not depend on human judgement.
The process should be initiated by a digital trigger and be supported by digital data.
The process should be functioning and stabile.
The bigger the volume of executions of the process the better.
For a Proof of Concept project it is key that the process leverages the key systems of the company.

Key Facts about Robotic Process Automation

Robotics technology is quickly being adopted across financial services industries. Here are some frequently asked questions and answers about the technology.

Getting Started with Robotic Process Automation

Combining Accenture’s comprehensive knowledge and experience from the financial service institutions with robotic process automation expertise, we help our financial services clients to identify areas relevant for robotic process automation and implement tailor made solutions with a quick turnaround.

A robot acts like a person - like a new employee, and with a modest set up of the robotics software on any computer with access to your systems, the robot can start working on the processed identified and mapped out for it, allowing you to get started with your robotics very quickly.

The high-level steps for getting started with robotics are:

Contact

Contact Michel Ott, Robotic Process Automation Lead for Financial Services Germany, Austria and Switzerland to learn how Accenture can help you getting started with RPA.





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